India and Bangladesh for re-establishing old physical linkages

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Connectivity has become a priority for India and Bangladesh and the two countries are trying to re-establish the old linkages that got disrupted in the Pakistan era.

While the need for connectivity between India’s ‘mainland’ and the Northeast via Bangladesh through a multi-modal approach has been felt for a long time, it began translating into action on the ground in the last five years following the assessment that reopening the pre-Partition trade routes would reduce the cost and time of transportation for the Northeast and generate revenue for Bangladesh.

A multitude of initiatives are being taken to advance connectivity between India and Bangladesh, which will certainly benefit the wider sub-region.

Amongst the ongoing efforts to boost connectivity are Bangladesh’s offer to extend the Chittagong Port to benefit India’s landlocked states of Assam and Tripura, the promise of operationalising the much-awaited Akhaura–Agartala rail link by the end of 2022, and adding new ports of call and protocol routes to the shared inland waterway network for better trade.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina offered India the use of the Chittagong Port when External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar called on her in Dhaka in April for an invite to New Delhi.

Prime Minister Hasina said the port would be of benefit to India’s northeastern States, particularly Assam and Tripura. The two other northeastern States bordering Bangladesh — Meghalaya and Mizoram — could also benefit from access to the port. This has tremendous significance for India, as the movement of goods through the ‘chicken’s neck’, a narrow strip in West Bengal, is a costly affair after access to the river and land routes through erstwhile East Pakistan was denied.

The creation of Bangladesh with India’s help in 1971 did not translate into the revival of the traditional river and land trade and communication routes for the Northeast.

The scenario began to change when Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government took charge in 2009 and the mistrust lessened after the dispute-ending land boundary agreement was signed in 2015. Since then, several efforts have been undertaken by the premiers of the two nations to improve capacity across waterways, roads and railroads.

In April 2015, India and Bangladesh had signed a five-year draft deal on coastal shipping to lower export and import costs. India and Bangladesh concluded two separate coastal shipping agreements in June 2015 for the use of Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Mongla ports. According to the news, “Indian merchant vessels will now use the two ports to transport freight directly to Bangladesh, rather than sending goods via ports like Singapore.”

Many of the rivers that traverse India’s northeast connect with Bangladesh. Some of the old riverine routes between India and Bangladesh (when the latter was still East Bengal) have already been reactivated.

Under the India-Bangladesh Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade – first signed in 1972, and last renewed in 2015 with a clause for automatic renewal every five years – the two countries ferry goods using specified waterways passing through both territories.

There are five such waterways. In 2018, India and Bangladesh agreed to develop Jogighopa in Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley as a hub/trans-shipment terminal for movement of cargo to Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Bhutan. In 2020, Dhaka and New Delhi began operations on the ninth and 10th protocol routes – the Daudkandi (Bangladesh) to Sonamura (Tripura) route along the Gumti River – with the first-ever export consignment of cement reaching Tripura from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has proposed connecting the land ports of Bhadrapur-Bairagi Galgalia, Biratnagar-Jogbani and Birganj-Raxaul with Banglabandha-Fulbari and Birol-Radhikapur via road.

The recently inaugurated Padma rail-road bridge in Bangladesh also holds the potential to improve physical linkages between the two countries. The Padma Multipurpose Bridge, the biggest infrastructure project of Bangladesh, was inaugurated on June 25 by Prime Minister Hasina who opened the bridge by paying toll tax.

The bridge will connect at least 20 districts of Bangladesh and is expected to help in faster transportation of goods and commodities with India and other neighbouring countries — Nepal and Bhutan.

India has been working on infrastructure on either side of the border. In March 2021, the Prime Ministers of the two countries inaugurated the Maitri Setu, a bridge built over the Feni River, which has reduced the distance between Sabroom in southern Tripura and the Chittagong port to just 111 km.

The government is working on a multi-modal transit hub at Sabroom inclusive of road and rail connectivity that can help goods reach the Chittagong port in a few hours. Road connectivity in Meghalaya’s Dawki, southern Assam’s Sutarkandi and Tripura’s Akhaura linking eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh is also being improved.

Mizoram is keen on bridges across the Khawthlangtuipui river (Karnaphuli in Bangladesh) for faster access to the Chittagong port. Apart from the India-Bangladesh Protocol Route involving the Brahmaputra, cargo ships from Bangladesh have reached Tripura through the Gomati River and Assam’s Karimganj via the Kushiara River.

In June this year, the Mitali Express, a train running bi-weekly from New Jalpaiguri in northern West Bengal’s North Bengal region to the capital city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, began its maiden journey.

Due to the pandemic, it was delayed by 14 months following its virtual inauguration in March 2021.

By connecting Bangladesh with North Bengal, the Mitali Express facilitates travel for Bangladeshi tourists to favoured Indian destinations like Darjeeling, Dooars, and Sikkim. It, therefore, opens up more opportunities to establish robust people-to-people connections.

This initiative is one of the many which have been undertaken in recent months by the Government of India (GOI) and Bangladesh to build better connectivity between the two countries, utilising India’s eastern state of West Bengal and the Northeastern territories, which form Bangladesh’s hinterland, beyond its national border. As India’s North Bengal shares borders with Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, and its Northeast shares borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, and even China, the train service also provides an avenue for expanding land connectivity with the wider subregion.

Both countries are also likely to discuss the early operationalisation of the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement by expediting the signing of the enabling MoU. This would allow Bangladesh, India, and Nepal to begin the transport of passengers and goods, with scope for Bhutan to join in future. Bangladesh had sought rail linkages with Bhutan via the route of Chilahati-Haldibari, on which the Mitali Express currently runs. Indeed, this train service adds to the opportunity for greater transit in the sub-region.

To promote people-to-people connectivity between India and Bangladesh, primarily in the 50th years of the diplomatic relationship, three new border haats were inaugurated during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year to Bangladesh. (IANS)