Wasi Ahmed
The move initiated by the government to work on a draft agreement on the regulation of passenger and cargo vehicular traffic between Bangladesh and India in the absence of a transit agreement is surprising. Ideally, arrangement for such vehicular traffic should have featured as a protocol to a transit agreement signed between the two countries. What now appears to the dismay of many is putting the cart before the horses — a proverb that goes to exemplify the utter lack of direction in achieving a targeted objective. However, in this case it is not just a misdirected approach but a deliberate one to achieve a shortcut in flouting the practised norms and standards.
The question that should baffle experts as well as those aware of the issues involved is why has the issue of a vehicular traffic agreement surfaced in the absence of a transit agreement? Isn’t it a transit issue that needs to be addressed under the internationally recognised practices of transit operations?
India has for long been asking for facilitation of its movement of goods through Bangladesh territory on all modes of transport in addition to the existing inland water transit facility, an operation that has been in practice since the partition of India but for a spell of around six years following the India-Pakistan war in 1965. The water transit protocol which forms part of the Indo-Bangla bilateral trade agreement has been revised a number of times. Lately, a major revision to make it more effective for transportation of Indian transit and transshipment cargo has been made to include Ashuganj as a port of call and the facility for movement of transit cargo from Ashuganj to Agartola in the Indian state of Tripura through trucks and trailors. It is important to note that everything that got negotiated on riverine connectivity has been under the ambit of transit. This being the case with water transit, there is no reason why overland transportation of goods in a much wider perspective should be looked at differently.
What transpires from the draft vehicular agreement proposed by India is that the issue is being treated not as transit but as a transport-cum-connectivity issue involving identification of land routes, types of vehicles that are to ply on those and so on. Understandably, the purpose is to drag the veritable transit issue to a self-defined connectivity issue. Concerned authorities in Bangladesh are yet to question the rationale behind treating the matter in the manner it is being done –misplacing it under a different garb. It has been learnt from newspaper reports that the draft has been sent to various ministries and relevant agencies for their opinions. Now, are the ministries or government agencies, given the present perspective, in a position to question the legitimacy of the exercise? They have been asked to give opinions on the routes and related matters. Their responses can at the most stretch up to the issue of viability of the routes and not to pin down the basis for asking.
Newspaper reports have quoted experts and the ministry of commerce officials who reportedly sounded straight in stating that accommodation of the Indian proposal would yield no benefit to this country. There were also remarks from government sources that if no extra levy, local taxes, service charges, maintenance charges etc., are imposed on the cargo vehicles, Bangladesh, far from gaining anything, would have to count heavily on damages to its road infrastructure. Needless to say, these are but a naïve way of looking at the matter and are far from raising the vital question — legitimacy.
Looking not far back, one gets a sense of how things began to take shape. The Joint Communiqué (JC) released during the visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister to New Delhi in January 2010 did not spell out the term transit, ostensibly because of the alleged sensitivity attributed to it. However, it did incorporate, by way of a set of cooperation initiatives, all issues that would facilitate India’s transit operations through Bangladesh by all modes of transport (road, rail and waterways) including access of Indian cargo to Chittagong and Mongla seaports. The Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development between India and Bangladesh, signed on September 6, 2011 reiterates the issue (Article 1) in its fullest spirit and content. Although the expression ‘transit’ did not figure in the JC or the framework agreement for ‘tactical’ reasons, it is not understood how could one think of materialising the key content of the JC or the framework agreement without going for a comprehensive (unlike the makeshift water transit) transit agreement and a multitude of protocols addressing all the functional matters involving various stages and aspects of transit operations.
Recognising that the JC and the subsequent framework agreement were agreed documents to work on, it was highly likely that the government of Bangladesh would evolve a suitable modus operandi to ensure a viable and self-sustaining transit operation for mutual benefit of both countries. However, amidst a good deal of initial confusion, prompted mostly by ill-informed and conflicting statements from apparently responsible quarters, the government formed a Core Committee on Transit comprising representatives who, among others, included eminent transport specialists and economists. The Core Committee, it was reported, had examined the matter at length and sent its report to the government.
Now that the government is set to work on the vehicular agreement as a tool for facilitating transit, one wonders if the authorities have finally decided not to shake the boat called transit and deal with the issue under the apparently safe and benign garb of connectivity.
Again it appears a trifle surprising to see that the government is presently at the final stage of its negotiations with Bhutan towards striking a full-fledged transit agreement. Bangladesh had a transit agreement with Bhutan, but because of its imperfections in meeting the requirements, both governments have agreed to redesign a transit deal that observers believe would more or less conform to the internationally recognised transit principles and practices, which among others include various charges on account of services that Bangladesh would provide to Bhutan.
Transit operation, one need not emphasise, is a gigantic activity involving not merely massive investment on the part of the country offering transit. But it is, at the same time, integrally related to a host of economic, political, security and management issues. Standard international practices confirm that a sustainable transit operation is essentially about taking into account all such issues with as much accuracy and precision as possible in order that it is rendered win-win for the contracting parties. Hence ever since the issue has emerged, experts have clearly stated their opinion in favour of a framework agreement on transit to start with.
Is there a scope for the authorities to revisit the issue?
Source: The Financial Express