In the days ahead, Bangladesh will send goods to Nepal and Bhutan through Indian territory by road — and vice versa for goods and items which would be sent to Bangladesh on the return journey. Bangladesh is known for its strong textile sector, along with handicrafts, jewellery, leather items, processed food items. Nepal, along with Bhutan, also exports processed food, fruits, handicrafts and other items.
Experts believe that an intra regional transport linkages, ensuring a hassle-free traffic movement among BBIN countries, would go a long way to boost the movement of people and goods in South Asia. It was proposed to follow the ASEAN intra-regional model encouraging seamless movement of goods traffic and trade among its members.
Rules and regulations were worked out among the countries involved. The river route was used first, as India sent heavy equipment and machinery to Tripura by river through Bangladesh rivers from Haldia port several months ago. This was followed by a shipment of rice from Haldia to Tripura.
Apart from helping the region’s import/export trade, participating countries also benefit in other subtle ways. There is little pollution caused by river traffic. The road transit agreement between Dhaka and Delhi reduces the distance between the Indian mainland and the Northeast states by 600 kilometres, avoiding the difficult hilly terrains and threats from insurgents along the way.
The rice from Bangladesh was sent to build up emergency rice stocks in Nepal, much depleted following the devastating earthquake in April last year. The allotment was made from the emergency foodgrains pool that is maintained by SAARC member countries to deal with natural calamities.
West Bengal too had dispatched 40 trucks carrying food, tarpaulins and medicines to Nepal by road.
North Bengal, especially the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri area, is poised to emerge as an international transit hub of the region. Two international highways, Asian HW 2 and Asian HW 48 will run through or close to, Siliguri town. The cost of the construction of building these highways is an estimated Rs 1,434 crore. The Asian Development Bank will fund the projects.
This followed a clearance from the central government. Policymakers in Delhi have felt that India needed to strengthen its road, rail, river and air links with the Northeast region, not only focusing on economic development. The strong road, rail and air networks that China has built up over the years north of the Indo-China border, in Tibet and elsewhere, also made it imperative for India to improve its own communications in these highly sensitive border areas.
Asian Highway 2 will run through North Bengal linking Panitanki, close to Silguri, with Fulbari in the same district, a distance of 33 kilometres. Out of this, 11 kilometres will have four lanes, the rest being served with two broad lanes. Cost: approximately Rs 602 crore.
Asian Highway 48 will connect Changrabandha in Coochbehar district to Jaigaon at the Indo-Bhutan border, a distance of 110 kilometres. National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) would build 18 kilometres and West Bengal PWD will build the rest, the project costing Rs 832 crore.
Preliminary work has begun already. The positive attitude of the West Bengal government, as evident from recent announcements made by state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, towards these projects, is seen as very encouraging by observers. Initially, there was some apprehension as to whether there would be problems regarding action to be taken about people have illegally set up shops or encroached otherwise on unoccupied land in these areas. Organised opposition by such people, often backed by locally influential politicians and others, made it difficult even from central government agencies to work on and implement, transport and other schemes in the past.
However, during her second tenure in power, the Chief Minister has sent a strong message against illegal encroachment. Assuring the central government as well as ADB circles that land acquisition would not be a problem, she warned that no further encroachment on unoccupied government land would be allowed. Such illegal settlements were often run by racketeers, she said and warned that the government would not take any responsibility for any relief or rehab for further encroachment.
Japan is helping India in a big way in strengthening the infrastructure of the Northeast. It has announced a budget of Rs 67.1 billion to build new roads and improve National Highways 40 and 55. Its projects include improving existing connectivity between Siliguri and Darjeeling and between Shillong to Dawki in Meghalaya, bordering Bangladesh.
Japanese experts are helping with the construction of roads in Meghalaya and Mizoram. They are also helping implement the sea linkage project joining Kolkata port with Sittwe in Myanmar, as part of the Kaladan Multinodal Transport corridor project.
Further, a new passport office cum immigration centre will also function from Siliguri very soon. Work has started from February this year. The Siliguri-Jalpaiguri stretch is seen to be locationally the closest to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and not far from China’s Tibet region, besides being the entry-point to the Northeast.
A direct positive fallout of the initiatives taken so far through the centre’s LOOK EAST policy,is the keen interest taken by Thailand in developing tourism, handicrafts and encouraging the export/import of locally produced goods and processed food, etc with Assam. Economists feel there will be a quantum jump in intra regional trade, a great increase in passenger traffic though tourism and religious festivals in the years ahead, while insurgency will almost certainly decline gradually. (IPA Service)
INFRASTRUCTURE BOOST IN EAST, NORTHEAST INDIA
OUR HIGHWAYS ARE THE ROAD TO DEVELOPMENT
Ashis Biswas - 2016-07-26 17:30
Some days ago, Bangladesh sent 10,000 tonnes of rice to quake-devastated Nepal by road, through the Siliguri-Phulbari-Banglabandha route. The cargo was not large enough to merit national media attention. But the event did signal the effective launch of the Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal (BBIN) Transport Agreement.