India presses for acting fast on ports procedure

FT ONLINE

India is pushing for finalising the standard operating procedure (SOP) of using the Chattogram and Mongla seaports for sending goods to its north-eastern states, officials have said.

The big neighbour in a recent letter to the government of Bangladesh requested for holding the next shipping secretary-level talks as soon as possible so that the SOP can be finalised immediately.

In October 2018 shipping secretary Abdus Samad and his Indian counterpart Gopal Krishna signed a deal in New Delhi on the Indian use of Chattogram and Mongla ports.

However, India could not start using the two Bangladeshi ports for transporting goods to and from its seven-sister states in the absence of the SOP.

The two sides exchanged drafts of the SOP several times but they were yet to finalise and sign it.

Shipping ministry officials in Dhaka said the SOP might be finalised in the next shipping secretary-level talks and India placed the issue atop its agenda.

New Delhi also in the letter sought comments from the shipping ministry about the administrative operational fees and other charges for operation of the Ashuganj port.

When contacted on the telephone, Mr. Samad said on Friday that the bilateral shipping secretary-level talks could be held in the first week of December.

He did not elaborate on the issues to be discussed in the meeting.

India is eager to carry goods using the two seaports to its seven-sister states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.

Indian vehicles need to travel 1,650 kilometres to transport goods from Kolkata to Agartala through Guwahati in the landlocked north.

However, the vehicles will need to cross only 350 kilometres, if they take a cross-border trip through Bangladesh's Ashuganj river port.

The distance will also come down if water vessels deliver goods from Kolkata to the Chattogram port and then transported by road to the northeastern states of India.

India is already enjoying multimodal transit and transshipment facilities for carrying its goods through Bangladesh territory.

After carrying bulk cargoes for several years, India early this month, for the first time, carried containerized cargoes through the Indo-Bangladesh river protocol route to Assam's Guwahati from West Bengal's Haldia port.