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Bangladesh considers upping foodgrain transit for Tripura
Anwesha Bhaumik, Calcutta
Bangladesh considers upping foodgrain transit for Tripura
PHOTO : Bangladesh considers upping foodgrain transit for Tripura.

KOLKATA, July 27 (TIWN Exclusive): Bangladesh is 'actively considering' to allow transhipment of 35000 MT of foodgrains to Tripura through the Chittagong-Asuganj route. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has a special soft corner for Tripura, has already allowed transhipment of 10000 MT of foodgrains to Tripura using this sea-river route. But 'vested interests' in FCI and railways have played the mischief, convincing an inept state administration that this route may prove more expensive than railway transhipment through Assam. But now with work on broad gauge conversion on the Lumding section of the NF Railway due to start after the rains, Tripura government is worried about a sharp drop in flow of foodgrains that the FCI brings in using the railways.

"It is in this context, that we have approached Bangladesh to consider upping our transhipment requirement atleast until the railway conversion job is finished," said a senior state government official but one who does not want to be named. 

Indian diplomats in Dhaka told TIWN that the Bangladesh government is considering this request 'rather positively'.

"PM Hasina has a huge soft corner for Tripura. She has told her officials Bangladesh must help Tripura out during her time of distress as Tripura during 1971. That is a huge thing for Tripura, coming as it does from the prime minister of Bangladesh," said an Indian diplomat in Dhaka, but again unwilling to be named.

Hasina has already told her officials not to charge for maintenance and repairs of the Ashuganj-Aakhaura road through which the transhipment would be done.

"I cannot ask Tripura for money, after what they did for us in 1971," she reportedly told her officials who immediately gauged her mood and stepped back from pressing for charges.

Indian officials say that a 'vested quarter' in the FCI and railways, who realise they would lose business if Tripura took the Bangladesh route for transhipment of foodgrains. They tried to sell the logic to the Tripura government that the Chittagong-Ashuganj route would be more expensive.

"Perhaps initially that might be the case because of multiple switch overs at Chittagong, Ashuganj and Akhaura but finally the costs will come down, "said logistics expert Atin Kumar Sen.

"Labour costs at these points when the loads change transport drive up initial costs, but finally they come down when deals are struck with Bangladesh cargo operators." 

His company ABC was involved in the initial transhipment of the heavy equipment for Palatana power plant and he is general secretary of the Calcutta-based Asian Council of Logistics Management.

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