Joint efforts to ease congestion
The customs authority plans to start working along with all stakeholders soon to ease congestion of vehicles at Benapole and Petrapole land ports.
The decision for the programme—termed as One-time Push—was taken in a meeting of a Joint Group of Customs (JGC) in Delhi earlier this month, officials of the National Board of Revenue said yesterday.
Under the initiative, customs authorities of Bangladesh and India will take a two-month programme involving all clearing and forwarding agents, transport authorities, service providers and port authorities.
“If necessary, both sides will work for extra hours,” said Md Raich Uddin Khan, first secretary for international trade and agreement of customs at the NBR.
On September 26, commerce ministers of the two neighbouring countries agreed to work in unison with immediate effect from October 15, meaning yesterday.
Some time is needed to take preparation, Khan said.
The customs authorities at Benapole and Petrapole will decide on the timeframe for effective implementation of the initiative, he said.
Benapole-Petrapole is the busiest trade route between the two neighbours, registering more than $9 billion in trade annually.
Bilateral trade heavily favours India, according to data by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India. Revenue officials said Benapole customs office handles nearly 1,000 export and import trucks and congestion in the land port has eased a lot in the last three months.
But still 500-600 trucks are cleared daily and customs clearance time per truck has come down to 4-5 days, they said.
The meeting in Delhi also agreed to introduce car-pass system for all land customs stations along the India-Bangladesh border.
At the meeting, Bangladesh urged India to give priority to transit cargoes from Bhutan and Nepal through India to Bangladesh to facilitate trade.
Bangladesh also placed their request to open the zero-point gate of Burimari-Changrabandha in the early hours instead of at 9:00am.
It also sought for introduction of a separate lane for third country cargoes from Nepal and Bhutan to Bangladesh.
Indian officials opined that it is not possible to introduce a separate lane, as the roads are narrow.
However, they agreed to give priority to transit cargoes to Bangladesh, Khan of the NBR said.
