Bangladesh and India are likely to sign a memorandum of understanding for using each other's railway lines to boost cross-border connectivity.

The deal is expected to be inked during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's two-day India visit starting today, Bangladesh Railway (BR) officials said.

As per the MoU, India will have access to BR tracks and Bangladesh will be able to use Indian Railways (IR) lines to operate passenger and freight trains up to Nepal and Bhutan borders, they said.

"An MoU on railway transit and transshipment is expected to be signed," BR Director General Sardar Shahadat Ali told The Daily Star yesterday.

Railways Secretary Humayun Kabir will accompany the prime minister to the signing ceremony, he said.

With the transshipment facility, Indian trains currently carry goods and passengers up to the India-Bangladesh border. From there, BR locomotives pull the coaches into Bangladesh and drop off passengers or unload goods before taking the coaches back to the border.

If India is allowed rail transit through Bangladesh under the new MoU, its trains will be operated from one part of India to another via Bangladesh.

The move comes at a time when India is set to develop an alternative railway network through Bangladesh to connect its Northeastern states with the rest of the country.

India plans to reduce reliance on the existing rail route through the Siliguri Corridor, commonly known as "Chicken's Neck", according to the Times of India.

The 22-km-wide strip, hemmed in by Nepal to the north and Bangladesh on its south, connects the seven northeast Indian states to the rest of the country.

According to a repot run by Times of India online on June 16, the planned project will feature 14 new routes connecting Bangladesh, spanning 861km, and alternative routes to the Northeast, bringing the total length of sanctioned tracks to 1,275.5km.

The initiative will involve gauge conversion of existing tracks and construction of new ones in Bangladesh, reads the report.

In November 2010, India and Bangladesh for the first time signed a transit agreement for waterways.

The two neighbours in 2015 inked a protocol allowing India to use four river routes via Bangladesh. The routes would link Kolkata and Murshidabad to Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya.

RAIL TRANSIT

Before the partition of India in 1947, there was seamless railway communication between different regions of India and Bangladesh through eight interchanges. Five of them -- Benapole-Petrapole, Darshana-Gede, Rohanpur-Singabadh, Biral-Radhikarpur and Chilahati-Haldibari -- have been revived in recent years.

During a high-level meeting with a BR delegation in April 2022, an Indian delegation discussed rail transit issues. Both sides agreed to work out the finer details and obtain necessary approvals from the authorities concerned, show documents.

Besides, the Indian authorities placed the transit proposal during then Bangladesh railways minister Nurul Islam Sujan's meeting with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi in June that year and the Bangladesh side agreed to examine the proposal.

Last year, Indian Railways put forward a proposal to the BR for carrying out trial runs of a freight train from West Bengal's Gede to Haldibari via Bangladesh.

The proposed route is Gede (West Bengal)-Darshana-Ishwardi-Abdulpur-Parbatipur-Chilahati-Haldibari (West Bengal).

Following an inter-ministerial meeting in May last year, BR sent a letter to Indian Railways seeking a comprehensive proposal with clarification. Indian Railways clarified saying it wants transit facility.

This year, IR has once again sent the proposal, through the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, for trail runs of empty freight trains. India this time proposed extending the route up to Dalgaon, a station near Bhutan border, from Haldibari of West Bengal.

WHAT BR SAYS

BR DG Shahadat said apart from Dalgaon, Bangladesh have sought access up to Hasimara railway station at Bhutan border.

This would enable BR to transport goods and passengers to and from Bhutan, he said.

At present, Bangladesh Railway can use Indian rail transit routes to Nepal only for transporting goods. Under the MoU, BR seeks to operate both freight and passenger trains, a BR official said seeking anonymity.

Replying to a question, Shahadat said a committee will be formed to finalise the modalities, routes, charges and other issues related to the railway transit.

"Making the railway transit routes operational will take more time."

He said both BR and the Bangladesh government would be benefited from the transit.

Asked whether BR infrastructures would be able to accommodate additional trains from India once the transit facility would be available, he said there would be no big problem.

There may be some problems regarding passenger trains as the Abdulpur-Parbatipur track is a single line. "However, the transit will be mainly for freight trains."