Officials in the Eastern Railway’s Foreign Tourist Bureau are hopeful that there will be over 150 bookings for the trains scheduled for the next weekend. On May 15, the counter had recorded 35 bookings before it closed for the day.

“Until now, there has been over 30 bookings per day and with three days remaining, the total number could cross 150,” said a senior railway official.

The flow of passengers from Bangladesh to India has consistently remained higher with the last train bringing in 137 passengers from Dhaka to Kolkata.

A fortnight back, Bangladesh had urged India to reduce the duration of the journey by suggesting certain measures like the immigration and customs checks on both sides of the border that take five hours.

“Bangladesh has proposed if this duration could be brought down by at least two hours. Another suggestion that was floated was the possibility of conducting on-board checks instead of passengers having to disembark twice — once at Gede (on the Indian side) and again at Darshana in Bangladesh,” said Deepak Kumar Jha, spokesperson for Eastern Railways.

“But the final decision will have to be taken by the Ministries of Railways, Ministry of External Affairs and Union Home Ministry,” Jha added.

“There is such a proposal indeed and it will be a welcome decision if it comes through. That will encourage more people to take the train,” said AB Zafor Ahmed, Press Counsellor at the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission at Kolkata.

The customs and immigration authorities on the Indian side said that they have been able to streamline the checking procedures to a great extent. “With the current flow of passengers, we have been able to bring down the checking time by at least one and half hours. But an official decision will be taken by the Centre,” said Barun Mallik, SRP (Sealdah). He ruled out the feasibility of on-board checks.