Indian President Ram Nath Kovid will visit Bangladesh to join the Victory Day celebration marking the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founder, and golden jubilee celebrations of Bangladesh's 1971 independence from Pakistan following a nine-month long Liberation War.

Kovind will travel to the neighbouring country on December 16 on a two-day visit at the invitation of his Bangladesh counterpart Abdul Hamid.

Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram Doraiswami said, "This is a special year and it has a great significance that Indian president and the prime minister is visiting Bangladesh in the same year." Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone on a two-day visit to Bangladesh in March. 

Doriaswami made these remarks after he called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her official Ganabhaban residence in capital Dhaka. 

Hasina said the relations between Bangladesh and India has reached a new high and the two countries had made significant progress in trade, business and tourism between the countries.

Stressing the need for enhancing connectivity between Bangladesh and India to boost bilateral trade and commerce, Hasina said rail communication on the Akhaura-Agartala route should be reopened expeditiously. 

"We have to enhance the connectivity. Everything (required establishment) of the Akhaura-Agartala rail route remains there. It just will have to reopen," she said.

The ₹980 crore railway line project between Agartala in Tripura and Akhaura in Bangladesh was to have been completed by December.

The 15.6-km-long railway link will connect Gangasagar in Bangladesh to Nischintapur in India, and from Nischintapur to Agartala railway station. Nischintapur has a transhipment yard, the first in the northeast region, and the passengers coming from Bangladesh will be de-boarded there. The incoming goods will also be offloaded at Nischintapur, according to The Hindu newspaper. (SAM)