Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, the Trinamul MP of Cooch Behar, flagged the demand of reviving an old rail route connecting Cooch Behar with Bangladesh.

Basunia, who got elected in the Lok Sabha for the first time, spoke elaborately on the longstanding demand of residents of Cooch Behar district as well as those residing in the neighbouring areas of Assam.

“It was an old rail route that used to connect Cooch Behar with Sealdah via Bangladesh. The route closed in 1971 and I would request the railway minister to take initiatives to reopen the rail route,” said Basunia, speaking in the Parliament.

He mentioned that if the rail route is opened, it will cut down the travel time between Cooch Behar and Calcutta. “Those travelling to Calcutta or southern parts of India from the northeast will also benefit if this track is reopened,” the MP added.

As of now, a passenger has to travel around 700 kilometres to reach Calcutta by train from Cooch Behar. The travel time is around 15 hours.

“If the old route which connects Gitaldaha of Cooch Behar with Mogolhat of Bangladesh, the distance will come down to 525 kilometres,” said Basunia.

Senior residents of Cooch Behar said that ahead of 1971, trains used to run between Gitaldaha and Sealdah, covering Mogolhat, Lalmonirhat, Kaunia, Rangpur, Parbatipur
and Darshana.

“The railway authorities have revived the Haldibari-Chilahati route to connect Dhaka with New Jalpaiguri station. It was yet another old route. However, no initiative has been taken so far to revive the Gitaldaha-Mogolhat route,” said Rabindranath Ghosh, the civic chairman of Cooch Behar.

He mentioned that even today, an abandoned bridge on the Mansai river, also known as Dharala and Singimari, stands now at Gitaldaha which is close to the India-Bangladesh border and is in the Dinhata subdivision of the district.

The route was established back in 1910, said sources. Even though the movement of passenger trains stopped along the route in 1971 as Bangladesh gained independence, goods trains would occasionally move to the neighbouring country till 1982,
said locals.

In his speech, Basunia also referred to an under-construction road over-bridge which is on a railway-level crossing along the road that connects Cooch Behar and Alipurduar.

“Every day, thousands of people who commute between these two districts get stranded at the level-crossing. The railway ministry should immediately complete the overbridge for free traffic,” the MP added.