India and Bangladesh have agreed to strengthen railway infrastructure to give a big push to bilateral trade through the land route and carry out a joint study to pave the way for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the two friendly neighbours.

The decision was arrived at a high-level meeting in New Delhi on Friday between the Indian delegation led by Commerce Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam and the Bangladesh delegation led by Mr Tapan Kanti Ghosh, the country’s Senior Secretary, Ministry of Commerce.

The two countries have approved detailed project proposals for developing a container handling facility at Sirajganj Bazar and construction of a rail and road based ICD at Ishwardi.

The officials were apprised that for running freight trains between India and Bangladesh, a 900 metre new siding line has been constructed at Benapole. The construction of the loading and unloading platform has also been completed at Darshan for allowing import of all commodities from India by rail via Darsana,.

A consensus was also reached at the meeting over putting into use the railway wagons/containers by Bangladesh that currently return empty after offloading their goods. This would reduce the overall logistics cost of India's exports to Bangladesh.

Both sides also agreed that Border Haats that had been closed due to Covid restrictions would be opened soon and the 24×7 operationalization of Petrapole-Benapole Integrated Check Post to be implemented soon.

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