India, Bangladesh reintroduce rail link

By Haroon Habib

BENAPOLE (Jessore), JAN. 21. The railway route between Bangladesh and India was re-established through Benapole today with the arrival of a goods train from the Indian bordering point of Petrapole.

The Railway Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the Bangladesh Communication Minister, Mr. Anwar Hossain, and senior railway officials were on board as the train decorated with portraits of poets Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore, banana trees and colourful ribbons reached here amid applause of hundreds of people.

The 35-wagon train, Sonar Bangla, carried foodgrains from India. ``This is a significant event for the relations of the two neighbouring countries,'' Mr. Hossain said. The service had been reintroduced in this historic route because of the growing demands for goods transportation and would benefit the business of the two countries.

Ms. Banerjee said the reintroduction of the service would strengthen historic and cultural ties and congratulated Bangladesh for taking the initiative. ``We hope passenger trains, too, will resume services to connect the major Bangladesh cities with Shialdah (Kolkota) soon... We are ready to reintroduce the service from India.'' It would, however, take some more time to complete formalities.

The route was established in 1884 and the Barisal Express operated passenger services till 1947. After the partition, a mixed service (passenger and goods) continued till the Indo- Pakistan war of 1965.

With the creation of Bangladesh, the goods train service was reintroduced for two years from 1972 but again closed for lack of goods.

India and Bangladesh signed an agreement in July last to re- establish the train link. This was in line with the initiatives of the previous BNP Government, which formed a committee in 1994 to assess the feasibility.

Officials said the route would cut short 63 km compared to the Darshana-Gethe track to Dhaka and facilitate smooth traffic of 7 lakh metric tonnes of expected import-export items in a year.

According to the agreement, goods train from both sides would be allowed at Benapole and Petrapole from where the Bangladesh Railway and the Indian Railway would take wagons of their counterparts to the destination.

Similar goods services are already operating in four other routes: Shahbazpur-Mohishashon, Rohanpur-Sinhabad, Birol- Radhikapur and Darshana-Gethe.

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