It has been nearly one and a half months since 24×7 operation at Benapole-Petrapole land border – a land-port that handles nearly 60 per cent of the Bangladesh-India trade from the Bangladesh side. Allegations are, it did little in speeding up bilateral trade.
The new set of commitment raised hopes that border trade would continue 24/7 and cut the time lag on the border – through the Benapole-Petrapole Integrated Check Post (ICP) – and help reduce the prices of goods imported and exported through the port that still suffers from congestion for inadequate infrastructure and handling equipment.
India has blamed Bangladesh’s customs department in delaying the consignment of trucks, which remain stranded for 6 days on an average. While some trucks get cleared by a day, some are left waiting for as long as 15 days to clear – even despite 24×7 operation. Most of blamed has been put on Bangladesh – the incapacity of its customs officers – leading to troubles in the Indian side as well.
Responding to such allegations, Bangladeshi customs officials have shot back, saying they are working round the clock to ease the persisting congestion; and that the slackness from on behalf of the Indian officers is the key reason behind the jam.
“Indian officers never come to work before 12:00 noon. Due to such, our trucks cannot enter the Indian side, their trucks cannot enter ours,” Md Belal Hossain, Customs Commissioner at Benapole land port told Apparel Resources. “The most frustrating fact is that their emptied trucks cannot return either and creates congestion at the port.”
It is to be noted that the designated time for truck entry is from 7:00am to 7:00pm.
Adding further, he said: “We check their trucks on one point. They check our trucks at 3 different points. They keep our trucks waiting. We are working our best to ease the congestion. Our officers are working on the field, till 2:00 am in the night, to ease up the port and clear all the congestion.”
Before the new measures, on average, 350 trucks used to enter Bangladesh and 150-200 trucks entered India every day through the land-port. Besides, 2,000 to 2,500 trucks usually remained stranded on both sides of the border for not getting the serial. And even after they do, inside Bangladesh, the have to wait for lack of cranes and forklifts.
The scenario has changed drastically and lot of improvement is visible – the queue has been reduced to more than half. From what could be known from the ground, last reported on the morning of September 19, 2018, there were about 1,300 trucks waiting to enter Bangladesh in the India side and about 80-90 standing in queue in the Bangladesh side.
It has been confirmed that some of the trucks take up to 15 days to clear. However, it is affirmative that most of the trucks which are laden with perishable goods generally gets released within a time period of 3-4 hours. Non-perishable goods are the ones to be worried about – which, at times, takes agonisingly long.
From what could be known, it is the testing facility that takes up most of the time for non-perishables. These testing facilities test the products like chemicals, dye, and any other products that need chemical testing before being allowed into Bangladesh. Also, sometimes, some goods require policy-level clearance; which also takes up a long time.
HOPES, OPERATION WILL BE BETTER
Benapole customs authorities held a high-level meeting with Petrapole authorities on September 12, with a view to smoothen out bilateral trade activities at port. Assistant Commissioner of Bangladesh customs Uttam Chakma attended the meeting. From the Petrapole side, Deputy Commissioner Rameshwar Mina attended the meeting.
“The meeting was very fruitful. We will take some initiatives – which includes expanding the area of our own port Benapole – to give a boost to the port activities,” Uttam Chakma told Apparel Resources after emerging from the meeting. “It is very disappointing to learn that India blames us (customs) for the irregularities at port. There are several stakeholders – the Benapole port authority, the association of truck drivers, and others who are involved.”
He held up a number of improvements that Benapole customs have undertaken to faster the port activities, including digitalization of the process, mobile scanning of the goods-laden trucks, a separate initiative to park the Indian trucks with security, and round the clock monitoring. “The operation, in overall, is in a much better shape than what it was.”
Currently, Benapole port has a cargo storage capacity between 20,000-25,000 tonnes against the demand of 2 lakh tonnes at present. These imported goods are left under the open sky. As a result, the quality of goods depreciates.