India fast-tracking the proposed rail link between Kokrajhar in Assam and Gelephu in Bhutan is good news for both Assam and the Himalayan kingdom. Apart from connecting Bhutan with the strategic railway connectivity, it will unlock huge opportunities for cross-border trade, commerce and tourism between Assam and Bhutan. The Ministry of Railways already notifying the cross-border rail link as a Special Railway Project will fast-track land acquisition and timely fund release to the project, which are highly important to meet target dates. As the project will take four years to complete, it brings ample opportunities for Assam to draw an elaborate roadmap to leverage the rail link to increase cross-border trade with Bhutan and people-to-people engagement. The state having a clear roadmap before commissioning of the rail link and undertaking necessary infrastructure and capacity building will be essential to ensure that the railway connectivity does not get reduced to a mere transit route for Assam to facilitate trade and commerce between Bhutan and other advanced states in India. Kokrajhar being the headquarters of the Bodoland Territorial Region, the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) will be required to play the crucial role in the preparation of the roadmap. As the BTR region shares the entire Assam-Bhutan border, the strategically important railway project is poised to transform the region into a hub of global economic activities. The rail link will connect the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), which Bhutan has started developing as a sustainable and technologically advanced city. Assam aligning its roadmap with Bhutan’s GMC project is critical to understanding potential economic development within Bhutan and its trade and commerce goals for Indian markets. As Bhutan will be eyeing the Indian markets for bilateral and multilateral export-import trade, Assam will be showcasing the strategic advantages such as proximity, availability of raw material, processing units close to the international border between the two neighbouring countries, age-old relations and improved road, air and railway connectivity through the state to reach out to a wider Indian market and also global markets in South and Southeast Asian countries. With Assam and other states in the Northeast region being at the centre of India’s Act East Policy and Neighbourhood First policy, any project initiated by the state government and the BTR authorities has the natural advantage of getting adequate support from the central government. The project gained momentum last year, when India and Bhutan signed an agreement to construct two cross-border rail links: the 70 km-long Korajhar-Gelephu railway track and the 20 km-long Banarhat (West Bengal) and Samtse (Bhutan). The King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, by his visit to the Integrated Check Post being built by India near Gelephu on the Assam-Bhutan border, the Inland Waterways Terminal (IWT), and the Multi Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) at Jogighopa in April already indicated Bhutan’s readiness to leverage these infrastructures in Assam to unlock economic opportunities in his landlocked kingdom. The Bhutanese King’s visit was not merely a symbolic visit for deepening bilateral ties with India but to increase economic interdependence to take it to a permanent strategic relationship mutually beneficial for the two neighbouring countries. The pace at which Bhutan is implementing the GMC project, right from planning to capacity building and actual implementation on the ground, is remarkable and demonstrates the country’s institutional capacity and vision of inclusive development. Bhutan, involving a cross section of people living in GMC areas in such strategic projects as volunteers, has lessons to learn, as such involvement helps in triggering public discourse and motivates them to make meaningful contributions towards successful implementation of mega projects and sustaining them as key stakeholders. About 7,000 people in Gelephu led by the Bhutanese King rendered their volunteer service from September 4 to 8 to develop public spaces, parks for GMC, a cleanliness drive, and beautification of the city, speaking volumes about the neighbouring country prioritising the role of the people in nation-building through direct participation, not as passive beneficiaries of the developed infrastructure or connectivity. A great advantage of such an approach is that people do not remain disconnected from the objectivities of the project developed to transform their lives, and they get a clearer idea of reimagining their economic activities, cultural practices and heritage and develop a collective vision about changes happening around them. Assam can take a cue from Bhutan and adopt a bottom-up approach in place of the usual top-down approach to trigger imagination among the people about the economic potential of the Kokrajhar-Gelephu rail link project. Such an approach will make the people in the state, more particularly people in BTR, get ready to leverage the benefits of the economic corridor being developed and adopt necessary changes in their economic activities and help strategic planners identify the strengths and weaknesses. The Kokrajhar-Gelephu rail needs visionary planning for economic transformation with people’s participation to turn into a transformative corridor for Assam.