From correspondents in Tripura, India, 04:00 PM IST

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar Wednesday welcomed the railway budget as it provided many sops for the northeastern states.

'Railway minister fulfilled our long standing demand to connect Tripura's southernmost sub-divisional town of Sabroom by a railway line,' Sarkar told IANS over phone from New Delhi.

He said: 'If the Indian railway extends its line up to Sabroom, it will be very easy to connect Chittagong, which is just 75 km from the town.'

Chittagong is the southeastern commercial town and an international port in Bangladesh.

After extending the railway line up to Sabroom, 175 km from the state capital, Tripura and the entire northeast would be linked with South-East Asia, Sarkar said.

Tripura has only 67 km of rail tracks and the Northeast Frontier Railway is laying a new line to connect the rail network to state capital Agartala within this year.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)