The government has planned to relocate two railway tracks at Sirsiya Dry Port in Birgunj to another part of the terminal as they have been lying unused.

Of the five railway tracks used by freight trains transporting goods from Kolkata port in India, tracks number 3 and 4 have been proposed to be shifted. Tarka Raj Joshi, officer of the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board, Parsa, said the Commerce Ministry had started work towards this end. He added that the ministry had planned to relocate them with the aim of putting the space at the dry port to maximum use. Joshi said a joint team of representatives from the board, the World Bank and an engineer from the Integrated Check Post that visited the site on Friday had also recommended relocation of the railway tracks. “The team has recommended rearranging the prescribed railway infrastructure to the western side of the dry port’s warehouse in its preliminary report,” he said. “The team will reach a decision after consulting technical experts.”

The team believes that the other three railway tracks will be put to optimum use if the two tracks are shifted. “In addition, the space now occupied by the two tracks can be turned into a road for the movement of motor vehicles,” Joshi said. According to the board, the tracks proposed for relocation cannot be used by the freight trains arriving from India, and they are being used only for parking purposes when there is congestion on other tracks. 

Experts have also been urging the authorities to shift the tracks to the eastern or western part of the dry port. As the two tracks are not functioning, shippers have been facing problems unloading the cargo arriving from Kolkata port. If a road is built after the railway tracks are removed, it will make it easier to transfer the cargo to trucks.