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Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata , Sept. 9

BANGLADESH has revived interest in the running of container freight trains between the two countries and has accordingly asked for detailed designs of flats and other equipment from the Indian Railways, according to the Indian Railways sources. Once the procedural formalities have been complied with, it should not take much time to start the operation, feel the sources.

However, certain issues, as the sources point out, have to be sorted out at the Bangladesh end before the actual operation can hope to start. For example, Bangladesh needs to have something like an ICD (inland container depot) — not a full-fledged ICD but preferably an intermediate handling point — on its broad gauge railway network to facilitate container movement to and from India.

Right now Dhaka, the country's capital, has an ICD but the city is connected only by metre gauge network. The broad gauge connection from India's West Bengal is available up to Joydevpur, which is about 20 km from Dhaka. However, Joydevpur, it is felt, is not suited locationally for setting up the intermediate handling point. Instead, there is a proposal to have the same facility in place at Ibrahimabad, which is also located on the broad gauge. But Ibrahimabad is about 170 km from Dhaka.

There is another point.

The broad gauge line is across the Jamuna Bridge in that country and the loading density of the bridge being less than what it should be, it is felt that some restriction may have to be imposed on the size, loading capacity and movement of the containers.

But it also felt that once the container freight trains start operation there will be lots of traffic between the two countries.

For example, Bangladesh, with the quota system due to expire as per the WTO Rules from January 2005, will require huge quantities of yarn which can be sourced from India in railway freight containers.

Bangladesh first showed interest in moving container freight trains between the two countries about a year ago. India responded immediately to it and sent a high-level team of the railway officials to that country in December last year. Dhaka remained silent since then only to revive interest recently.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh is also planning to have a barge jetty built for handling containers at Khanpur on the Sitalaksha river near Narayangunge and has accordingly floated a global tender. The purpose is to facilitate the movement of containers by barges not only between the port of Chittagong and the country's major consumption centres at Narayangunge and Dhaka but also between India and those two cities.

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