India wants to complete the ‘trial run’ for the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports in August

Black_cats · Jul 20, 2022

India wants to complete the ‘trial run’ for the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports in August

By Mostafa
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July 19, 2022

India wants to complete the 'trial run' for the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports in August

India wants to officially start using Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Mongla ports. For this, the country wants to experimentally conduct four trial runs within the next month (August). The Indian authorities said so in a proposal sent to the Ministry of Shipping.

In this situation, the Ministry of Shipping has called an inter-ministerial meeting at the Secretariat today to discuss how ready Bangladesh is to allow Indian ships to use Chittagong and Mongla ports. The representatives of various organizations including Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Commerce, Roads, National Board of Revenue (NBR), Chittagong Port Authority, Mongla Port Authority are expected to attend the meeting.

In the meeting, the security of the port, the condition of land ports, immigration, customs, road conditions, the extent of Bangladesh’s preparedness in customs will be reviewed. Several sources in the Ministry of Shipping told that the Indian government wanted to complete the four trial runs by July. But after knowing that Bangladesh is still not fully ready, the time of trial run was delayed by one month.

Several officials of the Ministry of Shipping said that the government of Bangladesh is not ready to conduct four experimental trial runs even by August. According to information from the Ministry of Shipping, an agreement was signed between the two countries in October 2018 to supply goods to the northeastern states of India using Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Mongla ports. The Ministry of Shipping of Bangladesh and the Ministry of Shipping of India signed this agreement. The transport agreement is called ‘Agreement on the Use of Chittagong and Mongla Port for Movement of Goods from India (ACMP)’. Both countries believe that both countries will benefit economically through this agreement. Trade between the two countries will increase.

But due to various complications including the corona epidemic, there has been no significant progress in this agreement in the last four years. Now the Indian government wants to complete the trial run in August. If any defect is found it should be completed within this year. After that, the port will be officially used.

Earlier the first trial run was done in July 2020. Then the small cargo ship from Calcutta port reached Chittagong port. From there the goods were taken to Agartala by land. The goods on board were branches and rods.

According to the information of the Ministry of Shipping, the route of the four trial runs has not been finalized yet. However, multiple routes are being discussed. One of them is that cargo ships will start from Kolkata Port or Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Port in India. It will arrive at Mongla port in Bangladesh. From there, it will go to Meghalaya state via Dauki by road through Sylhet’s Tamabil land port. Another route would be to ship to Chittagong port and from there by land to Bilonia in Feni or Ramgarh land port in Khagrachari and the goods would reach India.

It is known that several departments of the government are not fully ready to use the two sea ports. The work of NBR is not completely finished. Roads and land ports are not fully developed for the movement of Indian goods. These issues are scheduled to be discussed in Tuesday’s meeting.

The Ministry of Shipping says that the two countries have good prospects for using Mongla and Chittagong ports. Efforts are being made to increase river-based trade to exploit this potential.

However, traders say that the capacity of Chittagong and Mongla ports should be increased. Because, when India starts using two ports, the pressure will increase. So capacity should be increased beforehand.