Benapole land port, the largest of its kind in Bangladesh, has been struggling to clear cargos due to capacity constraints and thus failing to boost Indo-Bangla trade.
A report, published in the Hindu Business Line (HBL), mentioned this along with a series of problems in the Benapole-Petrapole international border points.
“Bangladesh has invested in passenger terminal but its cargo operations are in dismal shape vis-a-vis modern cargo handling facilities on the Indian side,” said the report.
“While Indian land port ensures unloading of import cargo from Bangladeshi trucks in flat 12 hours, Indian trucks carrying export cargo are detained for six days on an average in Bangladeshi land port,” it added.
Quoting the Indian traders, the HBL report also pointed out that ‘infrastructure inadequacy’ and `poor warehouse management’ are also compelling the trucks to wait very long in Benapole, the Bangladesh part of the border.
According to the report, prepared by Pratim Ranjan Bose on the basis of his recent field visit, the differences in cost of truck parking in two countries is critical to understand the long wait of trucks in the border.
“The Indian land port charges Rs 5,000 a day penalty for occupying space beyond 24 hours,” it mentioned. “Bangladesh didn’t introduce this progressive tariff and influential Bangladeshi importers use Benapole land port as a low-cost warehousing solution.”
In this connection, the reporter found that commodities imported from India are often stored at Bangladeshi land port for months, allegedly to be cleared depending on domestic market conditions.
Moreover the sluggishness in clearing cargo and the resulting congestion helped rent seekers.
“While private warehouses and parking bays thrive on Indian side, truckers allege that they are forced to pay Rs 3,000-4,000 goonda tax in Bangladesh on every trip,” it added.
The report observed that for nearly seven months since introducing the round-the-clock customs clearance by Bangladesh and India on August 1, 2017 there had been no visible improvement in cargo movement at Petrapole-Benapole border, the most preferred route for bilateral trade.
The border points accounted for 35 per cent of the $7.5 billion bilateral trade in 2016-17.
