Guwahati, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday accorded sanction for the final location survey of the 111 km Imphal-Moreh section for construction of a new broad gauge railway line intending to link India with the neighbouring Myanmar.

Railway officials said Vaishnaw, accompanied by Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, after conducting an aerial inspection of railway projects in Manipur, ordered the location survey for the new BG line up to Moreh, an important border trade centre along the India-Myanmar border with eastern Manipur.

"This new line once constructed will be of strategic importance and will form an important part of the proposed Trans-Asian Railway which will connect India with South East Asia on a rail network," a senior Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) official said.

The NFR is now implementing the Rs 14,320 crore Broad Gauge (BG) railway project to connect the Manipur capital Imphal by December 2023.

After the completion of the Rs 14,320 crore vital railway line (Jiribam-Imphal) by 2023, Manipur capital Imphal would be the fourth capital city in the northeastern region after Assam's main city of Guwahati (adjoining capital Dispur), Tripura capital Agartala and Arunachal Pradesh's Naharlagun (adjacent to capital city Itanagar).

The NFR is also laying new railway tracks to connect the capital cities of two more northeastern states -- Mizoram and Nagaland.