Latest news with #RailLink
Hans India
12 hours ago
- Business
- Hans India
Is Tripura ready to lead the India-Bangladesh trade corridor?'
Rusan Reang Agartala: Despite the recent efforts of Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, particularly his 'Mango Diplomacy' aimed at fostering cordial relations with India, a pressing question remains: Is Tripura ready to become the Northeast Gateway for Bangladesh's trade corridor under India's Look East Policy? For decades, Tripura, like many other Northeastern states in India, has been landlocked, with the narrow Siliguri Corridor, often referred to as the 'Chicken's Neck,' serving as its only connection to the rest of the country. This geographic isolation has hindered the region's access to mainstream economic development. However, Tripura is now emerging as a strategic link between India's Northeast and Bangladesh, playing a crucial role in the country's 'Act East Policy,' which aims to enhance economic cooperation and strategic partnerships across the Asia-Pacific region. Landmark infrastructure projects, such as the Maitri Setu Bridge in Sabroom and the Agartala–Akhaura Rail Link, inaugurated in 2021 and 2023 respectively, position Tripura as a vital India-Bangladesh trade corridor, connecting the landlocked Northeast to international markets. However, Tripura's potential as the 'Northeast Gateway' is not solely reliant on its geographic location; it also depends heavily on political will, cross-border diplomacy, and effective implementation. The Agartala–Akhaura rail link, which spans 12.24 km, connects Tripura to key industrial hubs in Bangladesh, including Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet, making Agartala the first state capital in India directly linked by rail to Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the Maitri Setu Bridge, which crosses the Feni River in South Tripura, stretches 1.5 km and links Sabroom to Ramgarh in Bangladesh, providing direct access to the Chittagong Port. This route significantly reduces logistics costs from Agartala to Kolkata Port by up to 80% compared to traditional routes through the Siliguri Corridor. However, these projects are not yet fully operational and remain subject to diplomatic negotiations, technical readiness, and policy alignment between the two nations. If the India-Bangladesh trade corridor becomes fully operational, it will significantly boost the region's growth, enhance logistics, create jobs, and position Tripura as a vital trade center for the entire Northeast.
Scoop
15-07-2025
- General
- Scoop
Endorsement Secured For Karanga-a-Hape Station Project
Auckland Transport has found a way forward for plans to improve the area surrounding the new Karanga-a-Hape Station – a key part of the transformational City Rail Link project. It will ensure the thousands of people expected to use the station each day will find the surrounding streets easy, safe and welcoming to move through, while also allowing for future growth and development. The design of the Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project was revisited after an updated plan shared with the the Waitematā Local Board in April 2025 raised some concerns. It led to calls by key stakeholders for AT to reverse proposed design amendments and reinstate certain features. AT Group Manager Rail Infrastructure Jane Small says AT has listened and responded to feedback from the community. ' We take feedback from the community seriously, which is why we took time to revisit the design and engage widely,' she says. 'In a public project like this, it is challenging to satisfy everybody completely. We have worked hard to balance the different perspectives in the local community, and ensure the project aligns with plans and aspirations for Auckland's city centre, maximising the positive impacts of the City Rail Link.' Advertisement - scroll to continue reading 'The changes more closely mirror an earlier Auckland Transport design which prioritises walking, cycling and pedestrianised areas, while still improving access for service and delivery – retaining loading spaces in areas where we've heard they are important. 'The best part about an engaged community is that we understand the full range of views. There have been a few compromises on some elements, such as keeping the one-way traffic lane on East Street, and on the approach to upper Mercury Lane.' When the City Rail Link opens, the new Karanga-a-Hape Station will become a focal point for public transport. This project delivers both permanent and interim improvements to the streets around the new station making it easier, safer and more welcoming for pedestrians to move through the neighbourhood, while also allowing for future growth and development. The latest recommendations were reached after Auckland Transport undertook another round of engagement with key stakeholders and elected members, including several site visits. Options were assessed to ensure they aligned with strategic plans, including the City Centre Masterplan. 'We'd really like to thank the local residents and businesses for their patience and time as we worked together to find solutions,' Jane Small says. The Waitematā Local Board has now accepted the recommendations which included: Mercury Lane: Upper Mercury Lane will operate as a pedestrian space with vehicle use only permitted for access to buildings on the lane (including e.g. emergency services, residents, maintenance/construction). This will be actioned as a pilot 'traffic filter' scheme for up to two years – with the opportunity for local input before being made permanent. Electronic bollards are being installed that can be lowered by authorised users. Cross Street: retaining the loading spaces required by local businesses but adding footpaths through a boardwalk design, adding further traffic calming at the Upper Queen Street entrance, adding more lighting, and replacing some paid parking spaces with loading spaces at the eastern end of the street. East Street: retaining the existing bi-directional cycleway and the single-lane northbound for vehicles, with devices to prevent vehicle use of the cycleway, and retaining the raised table pedestrian crossing linking to the new station access laneway. Notes: The Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project was initiated in 2022. Other streets in the project remain unchanged including cycleways on Canada Street, Mercury Lane and Pitt Street, footpath improvements, and new bus lanes on Pitt Street. Construction is already underway on a number of these improvements with all changes set to be completed before the City Rail Link opens. AT will continue to work with the local community, with opportunities to make further changes in the future likely, as the area around Karanga-a-Hape Station continues to grow and develop. The Karanga-a-Hape Station Precinct Integration Project aims to: Make it easier, safer and more intuitive for people to move through the neighbourhood on foot, especially when using the new station entrances Connect people arriving in the neighbourhood by bike to existing cycling facilities Improve connections between buses and trains Provide better connections for users with accessibility needs The full report and recommendations can be found here About the City Rail Link The City Rail Link is the biggest and most transformational rapid transit development for Tamaki Makaurau. When it's finished Auckland will have a better, more connected transport system, making it easier to connect with people and places. Alongside increasing the number and frequency of services across the rail network, it will also improve access to the city centre via its new and redeveloped stations. There will be big cuts in journey times, trains every 5-8 minutes at peak across most of the network, more reliable trains and new easier connections – for example direct services from west to east Auckland and simple transfers to busways. It includes underground rail tunnels up to 42 metres below the city, which connect downtown's Waitematā Station (Britomart) with the Western Line at the new Mangawhau Station (formerly Mt Eden). Before the City Rail Link can open in 2026, there is a lot of work to do across the wider Auckland rail network to get it ready. This includes KiwiRail's Rail Network Rebuild, integrating, testing and commissioning of new systems and all of the work AT is doing to be ready to provide a great customer service – from developing new timetables and driver training to safety assurances and practicing running the new timetable. Bus services are being significantly improved to increase connections to the CRL and this will mean better connections across the city, including to other rapid transit like busways.
Malaysia Sun
13-07-2025
- Business
- Malaysia Sun
MALAYSIA-CHINA-ECRL MEGA RAIL PROJECT-GENTING TUNNEL-BREAKTHROUGH
Xinhua 13 Jul 2025, 18:46 GMT+10 (250713) -- KUALA LUMPUR, July 13, 2025 (Xinhua) -- This photo taken on July 12, 2025 shows a ceremony marking the breakthrough of the 16.39-kilometer Genting Tunnel of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) in Pahang state, Malaysia. The East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), a mega rail project in Malaysia being built by the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), marked another key milestone on Saturday with the breakthrough of the 16.39-kilometer Genting Tunnel. The breakthrough represents a significant achievement in itself, situated beneath more than 750 meters of mountainous terrain, the company said in a statement following a ceremony to mark the occasion. TO GO WITH "Feature: ECRL mega rail project marks another milestone with breakthrough of Genting Tunnel" (Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua)
NZ Herald
10-07-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
The case for abolishing regional councils in NZ
Inspired by the Swiss system pushed by New Zealand Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says his vision for local government is about greater devolution to local communities. But, as Bishop and his Undersecretary Simon Court have recognised, that is not where the logic of his Government's policy programme leads. The whole direction of its resource-management reforms is about streamlining and often centralising decision-making. Bishop regularly cites New Zealand councils having established more than a thousand different types of zones, each with their own technical rules that everyone in the infrastructure and commercial and residential property sectors has to discover, understand and comply with. He argues this makes a lot of work for resource management lawyers but adds to the cost and complexity of getting any individual project built. Japan, Bishop points out, with a similar size and geography as New Zealand but a population 25 times bigger, has just 13 zones that its local authorities can choose from – six for residential, three for commercial, three for industrial and one for central business districts. In Bishop and Court's telling, having, say, 20 different types of zones in New Zealand would provide ample choice for local councils to reflect local characters across their territories, ensure the construction industry could more easily and cheaply comply with the rules, and force resource management lawyers to find more productive areas of the law to focus on. What role would then be left for regional councils that either the central Government or city and district councils couldn't do, at least no worse than the status quo? The Government's critics argue that getting rid of them would weaken local democracy, but regional councillors usually find themselves unable to genuinely reflect local views anyway, for fear of judicial review. So constrained are they by their council officers that a regional council chairperson is even less a genuine community leader than a city or district mayor. Their roading, civil defence and emergency management functions could easily be split between central Government, for big projects and disasters, and city and district councils, for smaller ones. As the interest in city deals has demonstrated – not least the two-year quest by my friend and client Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown for a single agreed transport plan between central Government and Auckland Council – the major projects that local people most care about can often only be done as a partnership between the two. Why keep up the charade that the entity with the bigger budget doesn't call the shots anyway? Major projects like Auckland's City Rail Link can obviously only go ahead when central Government agrees, but that is often true even of things like two-lane bridges in places like Northland, as so crudely revealed in byelections. Abolishing regional councils and devolving some of their functions into city and district councils raises the question of whether the smaller ones could cope. That in turn raises fears of mergers that, in some cases, risk sounding more like city and district councils being taken over by the unpopular regional ones. Aucklanders' anger at their big so-called Super City, which combined smaller city and district councils with the old Auckland Regional Council, might recommend Bishop and Court tread carefully. But that anger is mainly driven by fury at the so-called Council-Controlled Organisations (CCOs), deliberately set up by then Local Government Minister Rodney Hide to be independent of the democratic process, the way central Government's State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are meant to be. The problem is that CCOs and SOEs only make sense when the plan is to turn old, inefficient government departments into something that can make a profit and then be sold. Democratic oversight is removed to allow the new CCO or SOE to focus on profit, a new commercial discipline that also helps set their price. But when there is no intention ever to sell a CCO or SOE, we end up with the worst of both worlds: entities that are neither democratically nor commercially accountable. Better to sell the ones with no public purpose, and bring the functions of the rest under democratic control, as Brown has finally achieved, at least to some extent, with Auckland Transport. If that reform succeeds, it will be even more difficult to find an Aucklander urging a return to the old system. How bad would it really be if, say, the Far North, Whangārei and Kaipara councils were merged and also took over any remaining responsibilities of the unloved Northland Regional Council? Would anyone notice, other than the bureaucrats and politicians involved? Yet abolishing regional councils does not necessarily demand mergers of city and district councils. Depending on how much of their existing functions were centralised, including roading, emergency management and monitoring water and land quality, a case could be made for splitting some of them up, as Hartwich and Luxon might prefer. If Bishop and Court's vision of a small number of zone-types comes true, then even the smallest district council would be able to decide how to paint their local zoning map. In Auckland, the 21 community boards were meant to ensure local communities still had a voice when the Super City was set up. They have failed largely because they have so few responsibilities and powers that they struggle to attract credible candidates. But if community boards were empowered to decide how their local areas would be zoned from Bishop and Court's streamlined menu, then perhaps they would start to matter. That could encourage voters and potential candidates to take them more seriously. In some areas at least, Hartwich and Luxon's vision of localism might end up sitting happily alongside Bishop and Court's vision of a streamlined, workable and efficient resource-consenting system.
BusinessToday
05-07-2025
- Business
- BusinessToday
ECRL Hits 85% Completion, MRL Told To Tighten Oversight
The East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project has reached a major milestone, recording 85% completion, with full operations still on track to begin by early 2027, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Shamsul Azri Abu Bakar said. As such, Shamsul Azri called on Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd (MRL) to closely monitor the project's final implementation phase and ensure no disruptions, particularly illegal rail encroachments, that might jeopardise the timeline. 'I am confident the ECRL will become a landmark of national pride and a catalyst for economic revitalisation along its route, directly benefitting the people and the nation,' he said, adding that the project reflects the 'prosperity' element of the MADANI framework. The 665km rail line, which links the East and West Coasts of Peninsular Malaysia, is expected to significantly improve regional connectivity, boost trade and tourism, and stimulate economic development in underserved areas. Shamsul Azri also stressed the importance of continued collaboration between federal and state governments, private sector players and local communities to ensure a seamless and efficient rail ecosystem. He noted that MRL is working with various stakeholders to generate local employment opportunities and encourage business activities around the rail corridor. Related
