Efforts are on to transform Sabroom subdivision of South Tripura district into a gateway to Southeast Asia through measures like the Maitree Setu that is being constructed over the Feni river to connect the state with Bangladesh’s Chittagong port.

The port is 75km from Sabroom.

The subdivision will be connected with Belonia subdivision of the district by railways soon.

Sabroom is 135km from Agartala and 56km from Belonia. An integrated checkpost has also been proposed along the Maitree Setu.

Sabroom MLA Sankar Roy told The Telegraph, “The construction of the bridge on the Feni and other projects is going on expeditiously. There are overall 12 pillars supporting the bridge. Construction of five pillars has been completed. On the Bangladeshi side, piling for seven pillars has been completed and hopefully construction of these very pillars will be done by this June.”

“The construction of the Belonia-Sabroom railway line will be complete by March-April this year as 80 per cent of work on this line is over now. The under-construction Sabroom railway station is modelled on the Agartala railway station,” Roy added.

“However, there are some problems revolving around the installation of an integrated checkpost in Sabroom. The state government allotted 50 acres of land for the checkpost. The checkpost will be set up along the Indian side of the bridge. If an integrated checkpost comes up in Sabroom, Bangladeshi products would reach Tripura after crossing the Maitree Setu and after getting approval from the post itself.”

“To set up the Sabroom integrated checkpost, the state government sent a proposal to the Union home ministry’s border wing. However, the proposal is still lying with the border wing for over a month by now,” he said.

Roy alleged that the state government declared the Maitree Setu as a state project. However, the Union home ministry had not said anything about it.

Santanu Chakraborty, a resident of Sabroom, said, “It is making me proud that our subdivision is emerging as an international gateway. It is progressing from the Sabroom of yesteryears, which was lagging behind owing to poor connectivity. Earlier, all of us were dependent on the capital city of Agartala for connectivity. And now, Sabroom has become everyone’s focus.”