State failure will effect road transport sectorThe failure of the state government to keep thr trade at Petrapole smooth finally took it’s toll on the transporters.However it is a huge gain for railways.The first goods train from India via Petrapole finally started from 26 July.
Desher Samay- Petrapole : On the 26th of July 2020, at around 11:45, the first Container Goods Train started from Majerhat, Kolkata with the engine number 16557R A / W and arrived at Petrapole station. This train had 50 containers connected. The train halted for about 25 minutes on the zero line for train immigration formalities.
The train is the first cargo container train for export to Bangladesh passing through CONCOR CFS Majherhat, Kolkata and Petrapole (IND) to Benapole (BD). The train is equipped with an electronic cargo tracking system (ECTS), the containers are electronically sealed and tracked by the Transecur company. MGH Group Private Limited is involved in contract with Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) to run this train.
The running of this container train will put a check on the smuggling activities on the border through the train in the coming time, because the containers used in it are electronically sealed, so it will not be possible to open it by smugglers and smuggling baggage can not be put inside it. With this, BSF will also have a lot of convenience in checking the train on zero line and will take less time. Otherwise earlier the wagons of Good Trains had been tampered with for human trafficking as well as smuggling of contraband to Bangladesh through ICPs between India-Bangladesh by the smugglers.
