Goods traffic not to affect Bangla security

DHAKA, July 31: India today said allowing its goods to pass through Bangladesh would benefit both countries and dispelled apprehension that it would jeopardise that country's national security. The proposal of allowing transhipment facilities to Indian goods approved by the Bangladesh Cabinet on July 28 does not mean a "corridor" to India or even "transit rights", the Indian deputy high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak R Chakravarty, told newspersons. "It is just transhipment of Indian goods to northeastern states of India by Bangladeshi companies," he said, responding to strong opposition criticism of the proposal. "Indian goods would go through all formalities including customs checking at entry points of both the countries," Chakravarty said, adding "this is just a service which Bangladeshi companies would provide to transport goods from one point to another of the Indian border." He said a joint expert committee of both countries would sit together to work out the modalities, including infrastructure and pricing, for the proposed service. On Opposition allegations that India might move its Army to suppress insurgency in its landlocked Northeast states, Chakravarty said "It is only a bogey being raised by those who have no argument against the proposal." The Indian diplomat referred to a clause in the joint agreement signed by then Indian commerce minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Bangladesh counterpart Chowdhury Tanveer Ahmed Siddiqui in 1980 and said it clearly stated that the two countries would cooperate in using their waterways, railways and roads for mutual commercial benefit. "The agreement is already there, we're just trying to implement it in the mutual economic interest of the two countries," Chakravarty said. Meanwhile, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused the BNP-led Opposition of blocking her country's development by opposing the transit of Indian goods through Bangladesh and said the move would earn Dhaka about 400 million US dollars a year. In her first comments since her Cabinet approved in principle to examine the proposal for transhipment of Indian goods from one to another point in India by Bangladeshi carriers, Hasina said, 'the process was started by the BNP Government, which had agreed to allow Indian trucks to carry its goods over Bangladesh territory.'