India-Bangladesh rail route shut during Indo-Pak war in 1965 revived

The rail link between Haldibari in Bengal and Chilahati in Bangladesh used to provide a shorter route for transporation to Assam and North Bengal from rest of India

A goods train carrying stone chips left for Bangladesh on Saturday through the Haldibari-Chilahati rail link which remained shut since India's war with Pakistan in 1965.

The rail link between Haldibari in West Bengal and Chilahati in Bangladesh or erstwhile East Pakistan used to provide a shorter route for transporation to Assam and North Bengal from rest of India till it was shut down during the war.

"This was part of the Broad Gauge main route from Kolkata to Siliguri during the partition. Trains to Assam and North Bengal continued to travel through the then East Pakistan territory even after the partition. However, the war of 1965 effectively cut off all the railway links between India and the then East Pakistan," Subhanan Chanda, the chief public relations officer of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), said in a statement.

Railways in the entire Northeast, Bengal and part of Bihar falls under NFR headquarters at Maligaon in Guwahati.

"Haldibari-Chilahati route will provide a shorter route for transit of goods into Bangladesh from Assam, West Bengal, Nepal and Bhutan. This rail link will enhance rail network accessibility to the main ports, dry ports and land borders to support the growth in regional trade and economic and social development of the region. Economic activities of these South Asian countries will also be benefitted from this rail link," Chanda further said.

The train reached Chilahati in Bangladesh on Sunday afternoon, he said.

The railway network of India and Bangladesh are mostly inherited from British Era Indian Railways. After partition in 1947, seven rail links were operational between India and the then East Pakistan (up to 1965). At present, there are four operational rail links between India and Bangladesh: Petrapole (India) - Benapole (Bangladesh), Gede (India) – Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh), Radhikapur (India)–Birol (Bangladesh). The Haldibari – Chilahati is the fifth such rail route revived.

Railway Board in 2016-17 had sanctioned the construction of a new BG line from Haldibari station (Bengal) to Bangladesh border to connect Chilahati in Bangladesh as part of the joint declaration in the Inter-Governmental Railway Meeting (IGRM) held in Delhi in May, 2015

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart, Sheikh Hasina had inaugurated the Haldibari-Chilahati rail link on December 12 last year during the PM-level virtual bilateral summit. But the regular train services could not be started in the section due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Chanda said.