Bangladesh has proposed that the Maitree Express, the passenger train between Dhaka and Kolkata, should run over the Padma Bridge when cross-border services restart. Railway officials say the new route could shorten the trip by about three hours and bring the journey down to roughly six hours.
Proposal raised with India
Shaikh Rabiul Alam, the minister for road transport, bridges and railways, put the idea to Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi at a meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat in September. The minister said the change was meant to strengthen economic links between the two cities, but that all aspects had to be considered and a decision would take time. The high commissioner also noted that the Padma route would save around three hours.
The proposal was discussed again at a three-day Inter-Governmental Railway Meeting between the two countries at Rail Bhaban in Dhaka. A 15-member Bangladeshi delegation and a nine-member Indian team took part. Besides passenger trains, the talks covered freight, customs procedures and the import of railway coaches. Officials said a final decision on restarting the Maitree, Bandhan and Mitali services rests with the political leadership of both countries.
A shorter line through Bikrampur
Until now the Maitree Express has travelled north through Tangail and the Jamuna Bridge, then west through Ishwardi before crossing into India at Darsana. Its timetable allowed close to eight hours, and congestion on that corridor often made the trip longer.
The alternative is the Padma Bridge rail line, which leaves Dhaka, crosses the river from Mawa in Louhajang upazila of Munshiganj, and continues through the southwest towards Jashore and the Benapole border. Since the rail link opened, trains from Dhaka to Benapole have needed far less time than they did on the northern route.
For people in Munshiganj, the change would mean an international passenger train running across their own stretch of the Padma, on a line that has already brought the district closer to Dhaka and to the southwest.
Who uses the train
The Maitree Express started in April 2008, on Pahela Baishakh, restoring a passenger rail link between the two countries that had been cut in 1965. Railway figures show that about 95 percent of its passengers have been Bangladeshis, many of them travelling for medical care, family visits, trade or tourism. Passengers clear immigration and customs at the terminal stations rather than at the border, which shortens stops along the way.
Bangladesh Railway receives 75 percent of the train's apportioned earnings under the operating arrangement, with the rest going to Indian Railways. No date for the first run on the new route has been announced.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, railway.gov.bd
