Why the cargo train to Bangladesh must be put on the fast track

That it is cheaper to move goods by rail than road is common knowledge. Also, that the congestion at the Petrapole-Benapole border is making the $6-billion India-Bangladesh trade unduly costly.

India has an interest in reducing this cost as Bangladesh is its ninth biggest market. Yet, no serious attempt was made to optimise the use of rail links to reduce the pressure on road movement. Till the Modi government recently asked the state-owned Container Corporation (Concor) to explore ways to run a cargo train to Bangladesh, and only to find that the plan faced too many hurdles.

There are three rail links to Bangladesh — all through West Bengal — and all of them remain underutilised.

Of the three, the Gede (India)-Darshana (Bangladesh) link, opened in 2008, offers broad-gauge connectivity to the key consumption centre in Dhaka; it is used to run a passenger train four times a week.

The Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh) link connects northern Bangladesh but not the South. The Petrapole-Benapole link, opened in 2001, ends abruptly.

A BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) trade logistics study of 2010 pointed out that rail movement can be 30 per cent cheaper than even sea freight (which is normally considered the cheapest) between the two nations.

Its bet was on the Gede-Darshana route. But it also cited issues of rolling-stock and gauge mismatch between the two railways and, restrictions on goods train movement on the Jamuna bridge — the only link to Dhaka.

Most importantly, according to Prabir De, professor at the ASEAN India Centre at Ministry of External Affairs sponsored Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), the two countries do not even have an agreement for direct rail movement.

So, rail movement has little relevance to Indo-Bangla trade, which moves mainly on non-containerised trucks. But even this is not without its roadblocks.

First, container movement is restricted in Bangladesh due to the inadequacy of road infrastructure. High population density and riverine lay of the land make road widening a costly proposition.

Second, given the one-sided nature of the trade, full-fledged implementation of the MVA would hurt the interests of Bangladeshi transporters.

On the Indian side, the narrow 80-km road from Kolkata to Petrapole is highly congested and widening projects have failed to take off due to popular protests. Organised rent seeking and local transport cartels add to the problem. According to Customs sources, the last 5 km of the journey to Bangladesh takes, on average, three days to complete.

Improving rail and road infrastructure in Bangladesh is a long term agenda. Widening of the Petrapole road to de-congest it is also not in Delhi’s control.

The near-term solution may lie in shifting the cargo from road to rail, as was visualised by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government while connecting Petrapole land port by rail in 2001. The plan failed to take off primarily due to inability of the Indian Railways to carry break-bulk (meaning importers have to book a whole rake). Poor handling facility on the Bangladeshi side added to the problem.

A former Railway Board Member, who worked on the project, thinks the solution lies in creating a dry port or an inter-modal transshipment facility in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh-India Joint Working Group has discussed this issue but there has been hardly any movement on implementation.