Editorial
Indo-Bangladesh river transport protocol
Secure our interest fully
On the concluding day of the two-day meeting of the Indo-Bangladesh joint standing committee on Monday, the government is learnt to have agreed to India's proposal of nearly doubling the maintenance fee it had so far been paying for using Bangladesh's internal river routes and ports for transporting goods from India's western part to its north-eastern states. The Indian side said, the deal will be finalised in the next meeting of renewal committee on the protocol.
According to reports, India during the negotiations, had asked for increasing the number of river ports of call as well as allowing their use for transit and transhipment purposes.
But this is as good as asking for transit facility under the existing river transport protocol in exchange for only maintenance fees. It may be recalled that India has already been using the Ashuganj river port, filled up Titas river to build roads to transport heavy machinery for erecting a power plant in Agartala at its own cost.
Are we to assume that India would use Bangladesh's inland water routes and its river ports under the river transport protocol by merely footing the maintenance bill? But such wider use involves expenditures to upgrade the infrastructure.
What benefit will the government draw from it? Should not it charge tariff as a source of revenue earning for our internal water ways' use by a third country?
Experts like CPD executive director Mustafizur Rahman, who represents the core committee of the standing committee on transit, thinks that the issue cannot be looked at purely from the angle of river route protocol, but from the still wider angle of transit and transhipment. A similar view has also been echoed by M. Rahmatullah, a government representative on the core committee.
At the negotiating table, Bangladesh should put forward its case strongly for securing a deal that will protect its national interest fully and squarely.
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