Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujon said a Railway Bridge will be constructed beside the Bangabandhu Multipurpose Bridge to improve railway communication between the western railway zone and Dhaka.
“The Bangabandhu Multipurpose Bridge is the only bridge for railway communication of the capital city with the western zone of Bangladesh Railway (BR). So why can’t we launch new trains using this only bridge,” he asked rhetorically.
The Minister said this while talking to journalists during his visit to Rangpur Railway Station this afternoon ahead of the inauguration of three new inter-city trains to Rangpur division by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina through video conferencing on October 16 next.
The Minister said construction of the two-line dual gauge Bangabandhu Railway Bridge will begin next January and hoped that construction of the new bridge will be completed by 2023.
He said the present government has undertaken a project to construct a direct rail line from Sirajganj to Bogura.
“After implementation of the newly adopted project, the distance from Rangpur to Dhaka will be reduced by around 100 km,” he said.
The Minister said only one inter-city train, the Rangpur Express, is currently running from Rangpur to Dhaka to maintain railway communication between the two cities.
“The Rangpur Express is somehow running on the Rangpur-Dhaka route. Many bogies of the train have become unusable. The same situation prevails with the Lalmonirhat Express,” he said.
As a result, the time-schedules of running the trains could not be maintained causing immense sufferings to passengers during observance of the National Days and festivals like the ‘Eid-ul-Fitr’ and ‘Eid-ul-Azha’.
“We are importing 50 broad gauge and 200 meter gauge coaches from Indonesia to resolve the current problem,” he said.
