Centre bolsters ties with B’desh amid tiff with neighbours

Smooth cross-border movement at hand

NEW DELHI: Foreign Secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, has said that the Centre is upgrading the infrastructure to enable hassle-free cross-border movement between India and Bangladesh.
“We’re upgrading the infrastructure of Land Customs Stations for enabling smooth cross-border movement of goods and people,” the Foreign Secretary, who was speaking at a webinar on ‘Self-Reliant India: Reimagining the North East India in terms of Employment and Skill’, said.
The announcement by Harsh Vardhan comes at a time when China has been evincing increasing interest in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Amid the border stand-off with China and tiff with Nepal, India is all set to expand roads, trains and waterway services with Dhaka.
Nationals of the two countries can not only travel on board the Maitree and Bandhan Express to each other’s countries but also on buses plying between Shillong and Dhaka and between Agartala and Kolkata via Dhaka, Harsh Vardhan said.
He, who was once India’s Ambassador to Bangladesh, said four of the six pre-1965 rail links between the two countries have been made operational, and the work with regard to the remaining two is under way.
The under-construction rail link between Haldibari in West Bengal and Chilahati in Bangladesh will revive the old Siliguri-Sealdah rail route through Bangladesh, taken by the Darjeeling Mail, Harsh Vardhan said.
The Foreign Secretary said a new railway link between Akhaura in Bangladesh and Agartala and Tripura is under construction. He said there has been considerable augmentation of the inland water transport that links the North East to Bangladesh.
Harsh Vardhan said 20 port townships are planned along the Brahmaputra and Barak River systems to enhance inland water connectivity.
“This could galvanise multimodal linkages in the entire region,” the Foreign Secretary said.
Goods are transshipped to the North East through Ashuganj inland river port in Bangladesh and further through Akhaura-Agartala by road.
Only recently, the first container of goods was moved from Kolkata to Agartala, using the newly established India-Bangladesh agreement, permitting the use of Chittagong port for India to transport goods to and from North East.
A new inland waterway connecting Tripura to Bangladesh was also operationalised recently with the first-ever export consignment from Bangladesh reaching Tripura through the waterway.
A strong, stable and prosperous North East is a key to building a self-reliant India.