Commercial companies on the Haldibari-Chilahati railway hyperlink between India and Bangladesh, which had been defunct for over 50 years, commenced on Sunday with a items practice travelling to the neighbouring nation.
The restored rail hyperlink was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on December 17, 2020.
However, no trains formally operated on the route after that because of the pandemic state of affairs.
The stone chips laden items practice with 58 wagons rolled out of Dimdima station in Alipurduar at 10.30 am on Sunday. Its vacation spot is Chilahati in Bangladesh through Haldibari.
“The first run of a commercial service between Haldibari and Chilahati will be on Sunday,” a Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) spokesman had stated on Saturday.
The distance between Haldibari Railway Station to the worldwide border is 4.5 km and seven.5 km from Chilahati until the ‘zero point’.
After crossing Haldibari station the practice reached the immigration verify put up at Khalpara-Dangapara.
The president of the North Bengal Chamber of Commerce, Kishore Marodiya who was current on the event stated the graduation of business service on the rail hyperlink will assist in the financial growth within the districts of north Bengal and the entire state.
“Businessmen of the region are very happy,” he stated.
The building of a brand new broad gauge line from the Haldibari station to the Bangladesh border was sanctioned by the Railway Board following the joint declaration on the Inter-governmental Railway assembly in May 2015.
“The Haldibari-Chilahati rail hyperlink was operational until 1965. However, the (Indo-Pak) struggle of 1965 successfully reduce off all railway hyperlinks between India and the then East Pakistan, the Ministry of Railways had stated in a press release in December 2020.