The western railway authorities have suspended its agro-products special train service on the Rohanpur-Dhaka route amid little response from the farmers and traders in a week after its inauguration.
鈥榃e have suspended the agro-product special train on the Rohanpur-Dhaka route as there was little response from farmers and traders in carrying their agricultural products,鈥� said west railway鈥檚 chief commercial manager Sujit Kumar Biswas.
Earlier on October 26, the western railways launched the special train from the Rohanpur in Chapainawabganj to Dhaka via Rajshahi to facilitate low-cost transport of goods against the backdrop of skyrocketing prices of agro-products.
The cost of transporting goods on the train, consisting of six luggage vans with a capacity of carrying 203 tonnes of agricultural goods, and equipped with refrigerated vans allowing the transport of perishable items such as fish and meat, from Chapainawabganj was Tk 1.30 per kilogramme and from Rajshahi Tk 1.18 per kilogramme.
The train, however, did not get a single kilogramme of agricultural goods on the first day of its inauguration allegedly for lack of publicity and farmers鈥� and traders鈥� interest.
The train was scheduled to run on the route every Saturday at an operating cost of Tk 8.96 lakh per trip.