Border between
India &
Bangladesh, Gede
Station,
Nadia,West Bengal,India,গেদে স্টেশন
Gede (
Bengali: গেদে) is the last station and border checkpoint on the way to Bangladesh in
Krishnaganj CD
Block in
Nadia district in the
Indian state of
West Bengal. The corresponding station on the Bangladesh side is Darshana. It is the last station on the Sealdah-Gede section of
Kolkata Suburban Railway system.
Gede was one of the stations on the Sealdah-Goalundo route of
East Bengal Railway. With the partition of India in
1947, it became a border town. Thereafter there were three trains from
Sealdah running into
East Pakistan: the
East Bengal Express, the
East Bengal Mail and the
Barisal Express. The services all ceased after the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
Freight trains ran on Petrapole-Benapole, Gede-Darshana and Singhabad-Rohanpur lines off and on since
1972 after the independence of Bangladesh, and more regularly after transport agreements were signed by the two countries in the
1990s.Radhikapur-Biral section was another section for movement of goods traffic.
As of 2002, the Gede-Darshana section accounted for the bulk of the exports handled by the
Indian Railways (both the
Eastern Railway and the
Northeast Frontier Railway together) for Bangladesh.
A direct train between
Dhaka and
Kolkata, named
Maitree Express (
Maitree is a Sanskrit word meaning friendship) commenced on 14
April 2008. The train is managed by Indian Railways and
Bangladesh Railway. The approximate distance covered by Maitree Express is estimated at around 375 kilometres (233 mi), a stretch of 114 kilometres (71 mi) in India and a stretch of 261 kilometres (162 mi) in Bangladesh. The train follows the border
point route at Gede-Darshana. The train runs on Saturdays and
Sundays every week.
Passengers of the Maitree Express are irked by the five-hour wait for immigration and customs clearance at the border stations of Darshana and Gede.
Currently, all freight traffic originating from
Asia destined for
Europe goes by sea. The
Trans-Asian Railway will enable containers from
Singapore,
China,
Vietnam,
Cambodia, India, Bangladesh,
Myanmar,
Thailand and
Korea to travel over land by train to Europe.
The Southern Corridor of the Trans-Asian Railway is of prime interest to
India. It connects
Yunnan in China and Thailand with Europe via
Turkey and passes through India.
The proposed route will enter India through
Tamu and
Moreh in
Manipur bordering Myanmar, then enter Bangladesh through
Mahisasan and
Shabajpur and again enter India from Bangladesh at Gede. On the western side, the line will enter
Pakistan at
Attari. There is a 315 kilometres (196 mi) missing link on this route in the India-Myanmar sector; of this,
180 kilometres (
110 mi), in India, is between
Jiribam in Manipur and Tamu in Myanmar. The rail link between Jiribam and
Imphal has been sanctioned by Indian Railways, but that is unlikely to be completed before 2016. At present construction work is in progress in a 97 kilometres (60 mi) stretch between Jiribam and Tupul.
- published: 28 Jun 2016
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