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Petrapole-Benapole rail link back on track

Santanu Sanyal

THE movement by rail of goods between India and Bangladesh through the Petrapole-Benapole border is expected to begin soon. Petrapole is located on the Indian side of the border in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district and Benapole in Bangladesh's Jes sore district.

An agreement between the two countries in this regard was signed on July 4. The commercial notification of the agreement came through recently, enabling the Indian Railways to accept bookings for exports to Bangladesh through this border area. According to Railway sources, several inquiries have been made, though no firm booking has been made. The agreement, however, does not cover passenger movement.

The 1998-99 Railway Budget, for the first time, provided Rs. 5 crores for restoring the seven-km long railway track on the Indian side. The actual work started in January 1999 and completed in a record 11 months. Two bridges were rebuilt and fresh girder s put on three others. Also, the entire track had to be relaid as the earlier one (before the Independence there was a regular train service on the route) was found unfit for movement of present day wagons. Besides, the track was missing over some stretc hes.

On the other side, the Bangladesh Railways, too, rebuilt a 32-km stretch between Benapole and Jessore. Bangladeshi authorities, with help from a multilateral aid agency, got the job completed at Rs. (Bangladesh) 30 crores.

With the opening up of the route, the number of broad guage rail connections for goods movement between the two countries will rise to three. The two other broad-gauge routes operational are between Gede (Nadia district of West Bengal) and Darshana (Chua danga district of Bangladesh); and between Singhabad (Malda district of West Bengal) and Rohanpur

(Rajshahi district in Bangladesh).

Two metre-gauge routes are also operational. These are Radhikapur (West Bengal's North Dinajpur district)-Biral (Bangladesh's Parbatipur district) and Mahisasan (Assam's Karimgunge district)-Sahahabajpur (Bangladesh's Sylhet district).

While the Gede-Darshana section falls within the jurisdiction of the Eastern Railway, the other two under the North Frontier Railway. Also, except the Gede-Darshana section, the volume of traffic on the other two is negligible, mainly because the Indian Railways is gradually phasing out the metre-gauge system. In other words, the Eastern Railway accounts for the bulk of the goods movement to Bangladesh and it is virtually one-way traffic as hardly anything moves in from Bangladesh to India.

A few years ago, some imports for Nepal routed through the Bangladeshi ports of Mongla and Chalna had to be moved between Darshana and Gede to reach the Himalayan Kingdom. However, that traffic, too, did not continue for long.

Before Independence, there were three other routes, of which two were metre-gauge _ Gitaldaha (West Bengal's Coochbehar district)-Mogalhat (Bangladesh's Lalmonirhat district) and Changrabandha (Coochbehar)-Burimari (Bangladesh's Rangpur district), and on e broad gauge _ Haldibari (Coochbehar)-Chilahati (Rangpur). But these routes were closed for want of traffic.

The question of traffic, therefore, assumes importance for the Petrapole-Benapole link. A careful study of the traffic pattern on the Gede-Darshana route shows that in 1998-99, rice was the major export item from India to Bangladesh on the route, the mon thly average being 1,951 tonnes against 1,336 tonnes of cement and 237 tonnes of single superphosphate (SSP) fertiliser. That was the time when Bangladesh suffered a crop failure and it imported large quantities of rice from India.

The rice traffic has since dropped. In 1999-2000, for example, the monthly average of rice export on the route was 545 tonnes. The export of SSP also dropped to 28 tonnes a month. Interestingly, the cement traffic increased substantially _ from the month ly average of 1,336 tonnes in 1998-99 to 1,727 tonnes in 1999-2000 and further to 2,970 tonnes in the first three months (April to June) of this fiscal.

In 1999-2000, a new item, stonechip, was added to the goods exported via the Gede-Darshana link. In that year, the monthly average was 44 tonnes, which in the first three months of this current year jumped to 112 tonnes. The throughput of general cargo t oo increased _ from the monthly average of 123 tonnes in 1998-99 to 549 tonnes in 1999-2000 and to 1,138 tonnes in the first three months of this fiscal.

The export of gypsum which continued till 1999-2000 has since been stopped following the restriction imposed by Bangladeshi authorities on the import of the item.

The opening up of rail transport on the Petrapole-Benapole section is expected to boost traffic. For example, now large-scale exports of sugar and salt take place through the unauthorised channel, presumably because of the restriction of the export of th ese items through the official channel. The removal of the restriction will boost the traffic.

Coal, it is felt, is another item which holds out promise. Coal from north-eastern fields is transported by road to Bangladesh through the Dawki border in Meghalaya with the involvement of private traders. If the private traders are allowed to export sup erior Ranigungj coal, the Indian Railways, it is felt, can hope to have sizeable traffic on the route.

It is hoped that the opening up of the rail link between Petrapole and Benapole for movement of goods between India and Bangladesh will augur well for both countries. First, it will act as some sort of a disincentive to the large-scale unauthorised trade currently taking place on the land route between the two countries; second, the enforcement of the free trade agreement among SAARC nations within a few years will give a fillip to the trade between the two countries; third, the railway network could fo rm part of the Grand Asian Railway link being planned for several Asian countries, including China; and, finally, the one-way traffic will gradually be replaced by the two-way traffic between the two countries as Bangladesh, following liberalisation of i ts economy, hopes to attract foreign investment and produce and export quality goods at competitive rates to India.