By allowing India to transport its cargo through Bangladesh paying Tk 192 as the transit fee per tonne raised many eyebrows in the country.
A core committee of Bangladesh Tariff commission recommended charging Tk 1,058 as the transit fee per tonne of Indian cargo set to pass through Bangladesh any time soon.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority officials said they already gave permission to India to transport 1,000 tonnes of corrugated iron sheets from Kolkata to Agartala via Ashuganj by paying Tk 192 as the transit fee per tonne.
They said that India had been given the permission to use Bangladesh’s inland water ways and the Ashuganj river port for the trans shipment of the consignment from Kolkata in West Bengal to Agartala, the capital of the northeastern Indian province of Tripura.
They said India had also been permitted to transport the consignment from Ashuganj to Agartala by road in Bangladesh and on the other side of the border.
This would be the first time that India would pay transit fee for the transportation of its consignments through Bangladesh.
Bangladesh provided the transit facility to India though its northeastern provinces are not landlocked.
India has road links to transport goods to its northeastern provinces from West Bengal and other regions.
In recent years, Bangladesh government allowed India to transport goods through Bangladesh on a number of occasions charging no transit fees.
Officials in Dhaka said the transit fee at Tk 192 per tonne was fixed at a meeting of shipping secretaries of the two countries in Delhi in November 2015.
They said that the low rate was fixed as India refused to pay the transit fee of Tk 1,058 per tonne.
Economist and former caretaker government adviser Mirza Azizul Islam said the by allowing the two shipping secretaries to fix the low transit fee at their Delhi meeting the Bangladesh government astonished the nation.
The rate was much lower than charging Tk 1,058 per tone recommended by the Bangladesh Tariff Commission, he told New Age Thursday.
He demanded an explanation on the issue from finance minister AMA Muhith.
Out of Tk 192 India would pay as the transit fee per tonne, the National Board of Revenue would get Tk 130 as customs duty while the roads and highway department would get Tk 52 and the BIWTA would receive Tk 10, said officials.
India mounted persistent pressure of Bangladesh to win the transit and transshipment facilities through Bangladesh to transport goods between its northeastern provinces and the other parts of the country.
But India was reluctant to pay the transit fees to Bangladesh.
As Bangladesh repeatedly raised the issue, it took India pretty long to agree to pay transit fees as per the World Trade Organization rules.
Economist Debapriya Bhattacharya said there was no scope to settle the transit fees in the peculiar circumstances facing Bangladesh and India under the WTO rules.
He said the circumstances in Europe and Africa were very different.
In Europe and Africa only lack locked countries were provided transit against payment of much higher transit fees.
In South Asia, neither Nepal nor Bhutan, got the transit they deserve as landlocked countries.
Debupriya expressed doubts that the interests of Bangladesh was protected by fixing the transit fee at Tk 192 per tonne of Indian cargo to be transported through Bangladesh.
The incumbent government in Bangladesh met a series of Indian demands seeking transit through Bangladesh amending the bilateral inland water transit and trade treaty and allowing India to use the Ashuganj river port.
The Bangladesh government also conceded when India refused to
provide mandatory bank guarantee containing a declaration on cargo to be transshipped by India to facilitate checking by the Bangladesh NBR.
World Customs Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development provide for checking false declaration of goods, said NBR officials.
Former Tariff Commission chairman Mujibur Rahman who led the core committee said the low transit fee was totally insufficient for the recovery of the massive investments on infrastructure Bangladesh would have to make to facilitate India enjoy the transit facilities.
Economists demanded a thorough review of the paltry transit fee to be charged from India.
Source: New Age
