Topic for Presentation

Transit issue: Future effect for Bangladesh and India

What does Transit means?

There are three forms of geographic cooperation in the movement of goods transit, transshipment Corridor Transit means the interstate transportation of goods and passengers over a particular land or water route in accordance to specific agreement and regulations. Each form has a different significance

What does India want?

corridor facilities (If Bangladeshi vehicular movement is held up during the movement of the transit vehicles then this is certainly corridor-type facilities) Normally by corridor it is meant giving a certain country control over a certain part of the territory. While Bangladesh at the moment isnt granting this control to India, India is being given unilateral use of the route. India is transporting the goods at its initiative, it cannot be called transshipment either.

 According to various media reports, if transit is granted, about 1500 trucks of 15 tons each will ply the transit route. Added to that is the 750 Bangladeshi trucks presently using the possible transit routes. That means a total of 2,250 trucks will use the route every day, triple the present load. About eight routes are being considered for transit. Other than the Banglabandha-Tamabil and Banglabandha-Akhaura routes, Dhaka is included in all the six remaining routes. when India uses the transit route, it will be plying extremely heavy container-carrying trucks, much heavier the average truck. These trucks will be unable to change lanes and when these massive vehicles will go down the road, all other vehicular traffic will have to be halted.

How prepared is Bangladesh for transit, transshipment or corridor?

 The present road system is hardly adequate enough to bear the local vehicles and passengers There can be any alternative arrangement of time coordination, that is their vehicles can ply when our vehicular movement is down to a minimum Then there will have to be large parking lots along the route for the Indian trucks Chittagong Port Authority has implemented 18 projects at the cost of 2,100 crore taka (The Daily Star, December 29, 2010) While Bangladesh is spending its own resources to facilitate transit for India (Chittagong Port, for example) and handing over transit facilities even without any infrastructure development (Ashuganj Port, for example), in Myanmar India is pouring in its investment to develop the road infrastructure in the hope of winning transit facilities there.

How will the cost of transit infrastructure be met?

Who will be responsible for the security setup of the transit process?
Security is vitally interlinked with transit, transshipment or corridor, whichever Bangladesh is granting to its neighbour. The nature of the goods being transported must be inspected and monitored on a regular basis and security must also be provided for the safe transportation of the goods. Bangladesh lacks facilities for both types of these security measures in its existing road infrastructure.

Which route will be used for transit?

Even thought eight different routes are under consideration for Indian transit, the people of this country have no idea whatsoever as to which points Indian vehicles are likely to enter Bangladesh, which routes will be used and from which points will they exit Bangladesh to re-enter India.

What will Bangladesh get in exchange of granting India transit facilities?

Recently there were differences of opinion among the policy makers as to whether India will have to pay any fee at all The SRO has fixed a 10,000 taka fee per container and a 1000 taka fee per ton of open goods. Even though this is much, much less than what India is having to pay to transport goods over its own territory Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith, speaking in the secretariat on November 2, 2010, had said, No fees will be imposed on transit. This certainly was a surprising statement, considering certain quarters over the last decade or more have been spewing out public speaking about how many billions of dollars Bangladesh will earn through transit.

 Till now there hasnt been any study as to what environmental harm will be caused by the transit provision It is a mystery as to why this issue has been totally sidestepped in the matter of granting transit to India. In is also a matter of concern as to whether the list of goods for transit will be kept open or whether it will be specified.

Who will take responsibility for the environmental harm caused by transit?

 From the European, Central Asian and particularly the African experiences, we note that transit bring along with it great health risks. Top on the list is HIV/AIDS To make matters worse, it is the truck drivers in India who are mostly the AIDS virus carriers and they are the ones who will be entering Bangladesh The question is Are we at all aware of these serious risks? Has any precautionary action been taken whatsoever? Has Bangladesh any plan whatsoever of setting up the required facilities for the health check of the drivers using the transit route?

How will transit-related health risks be addressed?

How prepared is Bangladesh to deal with the smuggling and drug trade, an inevitable fallout of transit?
Again from the experience of Europe, Central Asia and Africa, we see an inevitable fallout of transit to be smuggling and illegal drug trade. There have been no statements so far as to how transit will worsen this situation and what preventive measures can be taken in this regard Phensidyl has become such a serious business for the Indians now that all along their side of the Bangladesh border so far 132 Phensidyl factories have been identified According to a study of Family Health International, India earns 347 crore rupees through smuggling drugs to Bangladesh alone (News Today, December 29, 2010)

Continued..
The existing scanning mechanisms which Bangladesh has at the moment for its road and railways, is totally inadequate to deal with this problem. The Questions are Will more scanning mechanisms be installed if transit begins? Who will control these scanning setups? Where will they be installed? None of these questions have been answered so far. In fact, no separate authority has even been formed to look after the entire matter of transit.

When there are so many unresolved bilateral issues, why is only transit being brought to the table?
There are several other unresolved issues Bangladesh has with India determining the maritime boundary demarcation of the land borders killing of innocent Bangladeshis by BSF along the border water sharing, Farakka Barrage and Tipaimukh Dam According to Bangladeshs Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), the trade imbalance between the two countries in 2009-10 was about 3.6 billion dollars and this gap is rapidly and steadily growing.

Continued..
So even on a regional level the big question is, why is Bangladesh sitting with India alone to discuss the issue of transit instead of dealing with this issue multilaterally with interest South East Asian countries If transit is granted, India will take goods to its northeastern states, just when the market there has opened up to Bangladeshi commodities. So when our business bodies rally in support of transit, one wonder to which country do they belong and where their allegiance lies. Will not the trade imbalance between the two countries simply intensify?

Are the government committees for transit at all capable of formulating the required guidelines?
In such cases, all countries carry out the necessary studies and evaluation, and weight the pros and cons. The government has created five subcommittees regarding transit. The heads of these committees had been lobbying in favour of the handing transit over to India, without bargaining.

Continued
There is S Rahmatullah, the head of the committee to determine the route and expense of transit. Then there is the head of the committee for the economic analysis of transit, Sadeq Ahmed. CPDs Executive Director Mustafizur Rahman is head of the committee to determine the important issues pertaining to transit. Questions are As these persons had long been vocal in favor of giving India transit over the past decade or so, can these people actually produce any neutral and professional results? How can political leaders get neutral and professional research results and take responsible decisions?

The potential damages Bangladesh could suffer:

1. The corridor through Bangladesh could increase Indian Intelligence Service activities in Bangladesh. 2. It could lead to spreading of AIDS and could become a potential route for drug-trafficking. 3. The road and ports of Bangladesh could get overcrowded, thus resulting in poor efficiency in domestic industries. Keeping in view the benefits, it seems the above mentioned risks are too small, from economic perspective. But, a country is not made up of its economy only, it has its political, ideological and popular faces also. To sum up the whole condition, Bangladesh currently does not allow India the transit because of non-economic reasons.

Recommendations
Transit facility to India appears feasible but a serious study will be needed to examine its benefits and costs. Alternative routes and modes of transport rail and IWT may be examined. Lessons should be drawn about legal, administrative and logistical aspects of transit transportations from international experience. Transit facility to India can be allowed on economic ground but at the same time BD should also be given the facility to transit export and import cargo to Nepal and Bhutan through convenient routes across the Indian territory.

Recommendations Contd01
The concern over abuse of transit right for moving forbidden items drugs, military weapons etc. can be addressed by introducing modern techniques of scanning and sealing advices. A transit agreement will be acceptable only if the benefits of allowing transit are overwhelmingly in favour of Bangladeshs national economic interest.

Thanks