President to visit Tripura

President Pranab Mukherjee will undertake a two-day visit to the Left Front ruled Tripura from Thursday, an official said here Wednesday.

"The president will attend the tenth convocation of Tripura Central University at Suryamaninagar near here Thursday. In the evening, he will attend the civic reception by the Agartala Municipal Council," an official told reporters.

Mukherjee will inaugurate the first unit of 726 MW gas-based power plant Friday. The plant has been set up by ONGC-Tripura Power Company (OTPC) Ltd. at Palatana in southern Tripura, 60 km south of here.

Before leaving for New Delhi Friday, Mukherjee will attend the fifth convocation of the National Institute of Technology, Agartala.

This would be Mukherjee's third visit to the northeast states and maiden trip to the Left Front-ruled Tripura after he became the president in July last year.

He visited Manipur, Sikkim, Assam and Nagaland in April-May.

The OTPC was floated by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in association with the Tripura government and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Service Limited (IL&FS), an infrastructure and financial service organisation.

It will set up a Rs.10,000 crore thermal power project, which is expected to ease the power crisis of the seven northeast states.

Three Indian Air Force helicopters have kept ready for the president's trip to southern Tripura and other places.

Tripura Governor Devanand Konwar, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Chief Secretary S.K. Panda and state police chief Sanjay Singh are supervising the arrangements of the president's Tripura visit.