A special train to carry agricultural goods from Rohanpur in Chapainawabganj to Dhaka via Rajshahi at a low cost was launched on Saturday without a single kilogramme of agricultural goods on the first day of its inauguration allegedly for lack of publicity and farmers’ and traders’ interest.
According to railway officials, the western railway has taken initiatives to operate three ‘agro-products special’ trains on the Khulna-Dhaka route, Rohanpur-Dhaka route, and Panchagarh-Dhaka route for three days in a week to facilitate low-cost transport of goods against the backdrop of skyrocketing prices of agro-products.
The special trains on Khulna-Dhaka and Panchagarh-Dhaka routes were launched Tuesday and Thursday while the special train on the Rohanpur-Dhaka route was launched on Saturday.
The special train, consisting of six luggage vans with a capacity of carrying 203 tonnes of agricultural goods, left Rohanpur railway station at 9:15am and reached Dhaka at 5:20pm via Rajshahi with stops at 13 stations.
The cost of transporting goods on the train, equipped with refrigerated vans allowing the transport of perishable items such as fish and meat, from Chapainawabganj is Tk 1.30 per kilogramme and from Rajshahi Tk 1.18 per kilogramme, officials said.
According to the railway officials, the special train on the Rohanpur-Dhaka route did not transport a single kilogramme of agricultural goods, but 150 egg cases despite an operating cost of Tk 8.96 lakh.
Farmers and traders alleged that most of them were not informed about the special train while some mentioned ‘double handling’ of the goods.
‘At first, I will have to take the goods to Rohanpur railway station from the fields in a pick-up van and load them on the train. Then, I need to unload them at another station and take them to the wholesale market by another pick-up van, and it costs them over Tk 3 per kg of goods,’ explained trader Arafat Rahman of Rohanpura area.
He said that trucks, on the other hand, took the goods from the fields and carried them straight to the wholesale market for a cost of Tk 2.5 to 3 per kg.
Mahidur Rahamn, another trader, said that they usually loaded the truck with their agro-products in the evening and reached the capital city and sold their goods in the early morning the next day.
‘But the special train will reach Dhaka in the afternoon. Then when will we sell our goods?’ he said, adding that the special train will ply the route only on Saturday, but they can send the goods using trucks whenever they want.
Faizul Islam, president of Rajshahi Metropolitan Wholesale Market Association, said that they were not informed about the train.
Md Sultan Mahmud, senior vice-president of Rajshahi Chambers of Commerce, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that about 300 trucks and pick-up vans left Rajshahi everyday with fish for different parts of the country.
He said that the number of trucks leaving Rajshahi with vegetables and other agricultural products was not less than that of fish.
Contacted, West Railway’s chief commercial manager Sujit Kumar Biswas told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that they had taken all measures to make the agro-product special train services so that the farmers and traders could transport their agricultural goods at a low cost.
‘But the people cannot come out of the prevailing syndicate,’ he said, adding that farmers and traders urged them to operate the train seven days in a week.
‘We are thinking about it. If the train is operated seven days in a week, the traders and farmers may be encouraged to send their goods by train,’ he added.