Indian Railways has added yet another feather to its cap with regard to facilitating connectivity initiative when the first-ever India to Bangladesh export container train departed Container Corporation of India (CONCOR)’s Container Freight Station (CFS) at Majerhat in Kolkata on July 24, laden with 40 containers of FMCG goods and 10 containers of fabrics.
The exporters from Indian side are Procter & Gamble, Arvind Ltd and Vardhaman Textiles Ltd.
This builds upon an experimental shipment launched by CONCOR and Indian Railways in April 2018, which used the Gede-Dharsana railway border crossing, but the list of goods permitted through that crossing was insufficient to make economic sense.
Traditionally, full rake load in covered wagons have been used for transporting various commodities such as stone chips, fly ash, maize, ballast, onions, rice, etc. to Bangladesh. Starting July, parcel vans and containers have also been added to this product mix. First rake of parcel vans containing chillies from Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) was made over to Bangladesh on July 13.
With the introduction of parcel vans, it is expected that new cargo which was not being moved by rail will be possible to be transported to Bangladesh by rail.
