In order to cut the time and cost needed to transport goods to India and push regional connectivity, Bangladesh has given India permanent access to its Chattogram (Chittagong) and Mongla Ports.
This is a landmark event in the bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh.
This will enable the transportation of cargoes from Chattogram and Mongla ports to Agartala, the capital of Tripura, via Akhaura and Dawki in Meghalaya through Tamabil, Sutarkandi in the state of Assam and via Sheola and Srimantapur in West Bengal through Bibir Bazaar in Bangladesh.
These routes can transport commodities from the Northeastern States to the two ports. This decision by the Sheikh Hasina government comes close on the heels of its announcement of an Indo-Pacific policy that enables more comprehensive cooperation between India and Bangladesh.
The access to the ports can embolden the prospective of the India-Japan-Bangladesh Trilateral in the backdrop of Japan’s significance in building the Matarbari Deep Sea Port.
According to officials from Dhaka, the permanent access is based on a bilateral pact titled ‘Agreement on the Use of Chattogram and Mongla Ports for Movement of Goods to and from India,’ signed in October 2018.
In 2019, India and Bangladesh finalised the standard operating procedures for operationalising the pact. After the COVID-19 Pandemic subsided, the two countries extensively tested the transhipments of cargoes.
The first transhipment took place in July 2020. Iron rods and pulses were transported from Haldia Port near Kolkata to Chattogram Port in south-eastern Bangladesh and then shipped by land to Tripura.
Chattogram is the primary port of Bangladesh, and it deals with more than 90 per cent of the foreign trade of Bangladesh, whereas Mongla is the second largest seaport of the country in the Bay of Bengal.
