To cater for the growth of container based cargo handling and transportation, both public and private sectors operators are operating in country through the single ICD located at Kamalapur and few container terminals across the country. Kamalapur ICD has been handling both the inbound and outbound container cargoes transported by Bangladesh Railway only. But the capacity of Kamalapur ICD is not adequate enough to serve the increasing share of container handling diverted towards Bangladesh Railway. Further expansion of Kamalapur ICD is difficult due to heavy built up of the surrounding area. Apart from capacity constraints, day time prohibition on movement of commercial vehicles (Truck, Container Lorry, Pick-up, etc.) is also very difficult in Kamalapur ICD. Therefore, it was necessary to establish another full-fledged ICD with constant access to container handling and transportation. For this purpose, it was decided to construct a new ICD near Dhirasram Railway station attached to the Dhaka eastern by-pass road. In order to bring the expected efficiency in container handling Bangladesh Railway has considered the project to be implemented under PPP modality.

The handling capacity of the proposed ICD is 354,000 TEUs. The ICD will be developed on approximately 55 ha of land and with railway spur of 6 km connecting the ICD with the national railway network on around 26 ha land.