To further strengthen people to people connectivity through Rail between India and Bangladesh, ‘Mitali Express’, the third Bangladesh-India train service, formally began operations between Dhaka and New Jalpaiguri.
Bangladesh Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan and his Indian counterpart Ashwini Vaishnav jointly flagged off the train service in a virtual format from the Rail Bhaban in Dhaka and Headquarters of Indian Railway Ministry in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Muhammad Imran and senior officials of railway ministries of both the countries, among others, were present during the opening ceremony.
The non-stop passenger train Mitali Express with 10 compartments, was virtually inaugurated by the prime ministers of both the countries on March 27 last year but the service was suspended due to outbreak of Covid-19. Now the service has been relaunched after over one year.
The Mitali Express on the Dhaka–New Jalpaiguri route is set to start its journey from New Jalpaiguri at 11:45am on Wednesday and reach Dhaka cantonment station at 10:30pm.
Indian Railways LHB coach (like used in Maitree Express and Bandhan Express) will be used comprising 4 First AC, 4 AC Chair Car and 2 Power cars.
Passengers have to pay $44 (Tk 5,255) for an air-conditioned berth, $33 (Tk 3,420) for an AC seat and $22 (Tk 2,780) for an AC chair seating in the train.
Flagging off the train, Railways Minister Sujan expressed the hope that the biweekly train will be upgraded to 5-days a week to meet the demand of the passengers travelling from Bangladesh to India. He sought India’s cooperation in improving the railway infrastructure of Bangladesh like the conversion of the railway line to broad gauge.
Sources said the additional new passenger service, Mitali Express, will give a boost to tourism of both the countries since it connects Bangladesh with North Bengal as well as North Eastern region of India. This will also provide an access of Nepal to Bangladeshi citizens via India by rail.
This new train is in addition to two existing passenger train services, namely Kolkata-Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express (five days in a week) and Kolkata-Khulna-Kolkata Bandhan Express (two days in a week) between India and Bangladesh.
Speaking on this occasion, Indian Railway Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw said that Mitali Express, will be yet another milestone in increasing this friendship, in strengthening this bond, in improving this relationship. The development is accelerated in a very big way by the warm friendship between the two nations at all the levels. Lots of collaborative efforts have been made between the two railways. It is a very opportune moment; a moment when we should take bigger steps to cement our relationship between the two nations.
He said close to 25 percent of the USD 8 billion Line of Credit (LOC) extended by India for Bangladesh is linked to the 17 railway projects being run by India.
The train will take nine hours to travel a distance of 595 kms from New Jalpaiguri to Dhaka Cantonment station. It will be operated by a diesel engine and will have four air-conditioned cabin coaches and four air-conditioned chair cars.
Mitali Express train will run biweekly (ex. New Jalpaiguri at 11:45 hours on Sunday and Wednesday and reach Dhaka at 22:30 hours and ex. Dhaka at 21:50 hours on Monday & Thursday and reach New Jalpaiguri at 07:15 hours).
Suvendhu Kumar Chaudhury, DRM, Katihar division of Northeast Frontier Railway said, "We are ready to start the services, the train is ready with maximum facilities. Around 15-20 passengers have already booked their tickets for the first journey."
