Title - Bangla wants AC coaches with fans, shutter windows

Indian officials working out a deal to build air-conditioned train coaches for Bangladesh have been perplexed by a request from Dhaka: fit these coaches with ceiling fans and replace most of the sealed glass windows with shutters.

Bangladesh requires 67 AC three-tier coaches to upgrade its passenger services. A modern AC coach costs about Rs 2.5 crore.

Indian officials tried explaining that AC coaches do not require fans and that their windows are sealed for a reason; though some emergency windows can be manually removed if needed.

The officials, however, soon realised that the Bangladesh Railways indeed wanted their AC coaches to have a unique design. And needless to say, they had to defer to wishes of the customer.

"Their requirement seems to be different from ours. We will design the coaches the way they want," said Railway Board chairman Arunendra Kumar.

Though Bangladesh has not specified a reason for such unusual requirement, Indian officials believe the neighbouring country wants to have the advantage of dual use of coaches, that is, they can be used even without switching on the AC.

Bangladesh is an old customer of Indian Railways. India has supplied 26 broad gauge 3,100 HP diesel electric locomotives to the Bangladesh Railway and fairly regularly exports spare parts of rolling stock.