Petrapole


Petrapole is the Indian side of Petrapole-Benapole border checkpoint between India and Benapole of Bangladesh, on the Bangladesh-India border, near Bongaon in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. Petrapole border is the only land port in south Bengal. It is also the largest land customs station in Asia.

Location

Petrapole is in the district of North 24 Parganas and is about 95 km from Kolkata on the National Highway 112. The nearest town and passenger rail station is Bongaon.

Significance

This check post accounts for more than half of the $4-billion trade with Bangladesh. This is the largest land port of Asia. The landport alone accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh. According to study by RITES, the goods traffic is approximately 400 trucks per day both ways, while the 2006 passenger traffic was about 1,159 people per day. The total traffic in 2029-30 has been projected as 2,938 trucks per day and the passenger traffic by then will be 3,924 people per day.

Communication

The Petrapole-Benapole rail link was opened in 2001 after being closed for 24 years.
There is a proposal to construct a by-pass road to ease congestion on the present road, connecting Benapole to NH 112, bypassing Bangaon.
On 9 November 2017, Nearly 10 years after Kolkata-Dhaka passenger train was flagged off after a gap of 43 years, a new train – Bandhan Express – was inaugurated between Kolkata and Khulna in Bangladesh, covering a distance of about 172 km. This is a weekly train and runs on Thursdays from both sides.