A three-day meeting between the railway officials of Bangladesh and India is scheduled to begin in New Delhi on Tuesday to settle some issues, including cut in travel time and re-scheduling of the Moitree Express.
Officials of the foreign ministry and Bangladesh Railway told New Age on Sunday that the three-day meeting would mainly focus on the issues as the cross-border train had failed to attract a good number of passengers in the first 12-months of its operation.
They said in the inter-governmental railway official meeting, Bangladesh would also propose to open a new ticket counter at the Kolkata railway station apart from the Shealdah and provide return tickets to the passengers of both the countries.
‘We are hopeful that the New Delhi meeting will come up with a concrete decision on both the issues of reducing travel time and re-scheduling of the Moitree Express,’ said Asadullah Mian, additional director general of the Bangladesh Railway.
He added that Bangladesh would propose to reduce the immigration time from four-and-a-half-hours to two-and-a-half-hours, by one hour on each side.
At present it takes 13 hours, including five hours for customs formalities on both the sides of the border, to travel 538km — 418km in Bangladesh side and 120km in Indian side.
Under the current schedule, the Bangladeshi passengers who travel to Kolkata by train are to stay for seven days in Kolkata for the return train, he said.
The train leaves Dhaka for Kolkata on Saturdays and returns from Kolkata on Sundays while the Indian train returns on the same days. |
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