The Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh intends to start train services along the Haldibari-Chilahati route from December 2020 as well as a passenger train service to connect its capital Dhaka with Bengal’s Siliguri from March 2021.

The route between Cooch Behar’s Haldibari and Bangladesh’s Chilahati is likely to open on December 16, which both countries celebrate as Bijoy Dibosh or Vijay Diwas to mark the day in 1971 when Pakistani troops surrendered to the allied forces of India and Bangladesh, ending war of liberation for Bangladesh.

The Dhaka-Siliguri route is likely to come up on March 26, Bangladesh’s Independence Day. In 2021, Bangladesh will celebrate 50 years of independence.

Trains used to run through this route over five decades earlier — Bangladesh was East Pakistan then — but had stopped in 1965 during the India-Pakistan war.

During the past few years, governments of both India and Bangladesh had taken the initiative to lay railway tracks and put up ancillary infrastructure to run trains along the route. Work is almost over on both sides of the border.

Last week on October 21, Bangladesh railway minister Nurul Islam Sujon met Vikram Doraiswami, the new high commissioner of India at Dhaka’s Rail Bhawan.

After the meeting, an official release issued by the Bangladesh government the next day stated that the railway minister said the tracks for the Haldibari-Chilahati route would open this December.

“The railway minister said the railway line from Haldibari in India to Chilahati in Bangladesh will be launched in December,” said the release.

In an official post, the High Commission of India in Bangladesh said that at the meeting, Doraiswami and Sujon had discussed “ways to further enhance #IndiaBangladesh connectivity.”

The news release issued by Bangladesh press information department stated that its government was also mulling another plan, that is, introduction of passenger train services between Dhaka and Siliguri.

“….Besides, there are plans to run a passenger train from Dhaka to Siliguri on March 26 next year, the minister added,” reads the release.

Across north Bengal and in Bangladesh, there has been a steady demand to introduce train and air services. Thousands of Bangladeshi nationals visit Siliguri and nearby areas for education, healthcare, commerce and other reasons.

Many Bangladeshi tourists visit the hills every year, including Sikkim.

As of now, there are four rail routes that connect Bengal with Bangladesh, Petrapole-Benapole, Singhabad-Rohanpur, Gede-Darshana and Radhikapur-Birol.

Bus service is available from Siliguri to Dhaka via Changrabandha of Cooch Behar. Trial runs have been conducted to run buses along the Dhaka-Siliguri-Kathmandu route as a part of the transport agreement signed among the neighbouring countries but the service is yet to start.

“A passenger train service linking Bangladesh will give a major boost to the regional economy of north Bengal. We are eagerly waiting for the day,” said Samrat Sanyal, general secretary, Himalayan Hospitality and Tourism Development Network.

Sources associated with the Haldibari-Chilahati route rail project said that chances were high that the route opens on December 16.

A trial run by the Bangladesh Railway two days back has cheered the residents of Cooch Behar’s Haldibari. “It was nice to see the locomotive of the Bangladesh Railway approaching the border after years. On both the sides, work is on in full swing and it will be great if the track is finally commissioned in December,” said Satish Dutta, an elderly resident of Haldibari.

Officials of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), the zone of Indian Railway that has been working on the rail project, said tracks have been laid till the border. “Some ancillary works at Haldibari station are in progress. We do not have any information as to when the rail route will open but we have instructions to finish the work by December,” said S. Chanda, the chief public relations officer of NFR.

Additional inputs by Anirban Choudhury in Alipurduar