East Central Railway (ECR) today announced a "Roll on-Roll off" service to decongest the Gandhi Setu, considered a lifeline for north Bihar, by transporting trucks from southern to northern side of the Ganga.
In the starting, trucks would be taken from Bihta in southern side to Turki/Narayanpur Freight terminal in northern side through loop line service launched from Digha via Hajipur recently, ECR spokesman Arvind Kumar Rajak said in a statement here.
This was one of the ideas given by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to the Railways as a solution to solve jam at the Gandhi Setu over the Ganga river.
Such "Roll on-Roll off" was first started by Konkan Railway in 1999 and which has been running it in Konkan area for the past 16 years, he said.
The ECR would consider running such services in other routes in future, Rajak said.
Under it, trucks would be loaded in Bihta and offloaded at Turki/Narayanpur in Muzaffarpur, he said.
Truck weighing 15 tonnes would have to pay Rs 4000 while for ferrying empty truck a sum of Rs 2650 would be charged, he added.
Above 15 tonnes, transporters would have to pay Rs 250 per additional tonne, he said.
