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Railway is fast becoming a vital option for onion transportation from India following suspension of road network between the two neighbouring nations for the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.
Bangladesh Railway's freight trains, noted for bringing stones and fly ash as raw materials for cement, from India, are now used to bring onion, garlic and ginger.
The authorities of the two countries earlier agreed to run their rails for transportation of essential goods.
"Onion is mainly coming from India. Ginger and turmeric are also coming through trains apart from fly ash," said BR west zone general manager Mihir Guho. He said six consignments with goods have so far been transported mainly through the Darshana-Gede border since the freight service was launched on May 09.
Bangladesh and Indian railways in support of commerce ministry and Indian high commission during videoconferencing on May 04 decided to utilise the freight service for transportation of goods.
Road-based transportation has remained closed since the countrywide lockdown imposed on March 26.
According to statistics collected from Darshana station, 10,924 tonnes of onion have so far been brought in train after the decision was made. Fly ash amounting 2469 tonnes was received on Saturday.
Accor siding to sources at Darshana, they have received an offer of transporting a consignment of garlic and red pepper today (Sunday).
Mr Guho said a batch of Indian onion was also received from the Rohonpur-Singabad border. He said a demand for stones from Indian side has been placed which is not received for a shortage of labour to unload the heavy item.
Bangladesh and India have been operating freight trains through Rohonpur-Singabad, Benapole-Petrapole, Darshana-Gede and Birol-Radhikapur borders.
Border officials said freight trains are usually used for transporting stones and heavily-loaded non-perishable items. Onion, ginger or other perishables were never hauled through trains in fear of the items being rotten.
"We expect that with the experience of transporting such items during lockdown, importers may be interested in bringing these later on," said an official.
From their experience, he said, the items so far unloaded at Darshana were not received.
Since the coronavirus lockdown, the BR has kept all its passenger and good services suspended except freight service between Chattogram port and Dhaka.
Although it tried to introduce parcel service to recover from a loss of crores of taka daily, nobody could get much response from traders and businessmen.
It is claimed that parcel trains run from Panchagarh to Dhaka and Khulna to Chilhati every alternate day with a booking of Tk 30,000 daily.