India, Bangladesh sign 2 agreements to deepen railway co-operation

Two Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) were signed between India and Bangladesh on Tuesday to deepen the inter-governmental railway cooperation between the two countries.

This comes after the visit of the multi-sectoral scoping Indian Railways delegation to Bangladesh in April 2022 and the recent meeting between the Minister of Railways of India and the Bangladesh Railway Minister on June 1, 2022.

These MoUs were signed and exchanged on September 6, 2022, during the visit of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina to India.

The two MoUs signed include "Training of Bangladesh Railway Employees in the Training Institute of Indian Railways" and "Collaboration in IT Systems such as FOIS and other IT applications for Bangladesh Railway".

The purpose of the MoU relating to the training of the Bangladesh Railway Employees is to provide the framework of cooperation and to facilitate training of employees of Bangladesh Railway at the training institutes of Indian Railways including field visits.

This will include designing, coordinating, and conducting seminars, workshops, and classroom and fields training. Indian Railways will also coordinate with officials of the Ministry of Railways, Government of Bangladesh, as required, including visiting and assisting in setting up and improving training facilities in Bangladesh and study requirements.

The MoU which relates to the collaboration of IT systems will be for all aspects of computerization like passenger ticketing, freight operations and control office, train inquiry system, digitization of asset management, HR and Finance infrastructure in Bangladesh Railway, Ministry of Railway, Government of India, through Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS), will offer IT solutions to Bangladesh Railway.