Indian Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu plans to run a trans-continental container train full of goods from Dhaka to Istanbul, reports India’s business daily ‘Financial Express.’
The train would cover a 6,000-km journey across five countries – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.
It says eventually Myanmar’s Yangon will also be connected to Dhaka after the missing Tamu-Kalay link in Southeast Asian country is completed.
Heads of railways of South Asian countries involved in the project have been called by Indian Railways at a high-level meeting in Delhi on Mar 15 and 16.
The good part of the project is that a long-missing link of 150 km in Zahedan (which is in the Baluchestan province of Iran) has now been completed, says the Financial Express report,
That has further made Trans-Asian Railway Southern Corridor good-to-go all the way to Turkey after certain operational exchange of notes and coordination between the nations concerned happens.
India is anchoring the process this month.
Mohammad Jamshed, Indian Railway Board Member said that the demonstration run will happen very soon in 2017 and they will sort out all the issues with the countries concerned.
It’s a great leap for South Asian regional connectivity in the rail sector. This will also demonstrate to the world that there can be a real, commercial trans-Asian container corridor of this magnitude in the rail sector.
Source: bdnews24