Bangladesh, India merge South Asia’s biggest land port, ease movement

Bangladesh and India have merged the busiest land check-post at Benapole-Petrapole, easing the movement of people and goods to take their relations a notch higher.

Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi opened the new ‘Petrapole Integrated Check Post’ (ICP) through a video call on Thursday. Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee joined them from Kolkata.

This is the second ICP on the India-Bangladesh border after the one in Agartala, Tripura, and the biggest anywhere on India’s borders.

The High Commission of India says it will also be the biggest land port in South Asia.

Around 70 to 80 percent of the India-Bangladesh trade passes through Benapole-Petrapole.

Trade worth around $5 billion takes place at Petrapole, which is more than all the other Indian land ports and land customs stations put together.

Roughly 1.2 million people and 150,000 trucks cross Petrapole-Benapole every year, according to the Indian high commission in Dhaka.

The integrated post is aimed at eliminating infrastructural bottlenecks to achieve “effective and efficient” security, immigration, customs, and quarantine functions.

It will also ease cross-border movement of people, goods, and transport.

Petrapole-Benapole’s handling capacity is expected to double with the commissioning of the integrated post, and the local business community is likely to benefit from reduced transaction time and costs.

The Indian government hopes it would also “foster greater economic integration and connectivity between India and Bangladesh”.

After Petrapole, the next land customs station to be upgraded will be Dawki in Meghalaya, where land acquisition for the project has been completed.

Bangladesh-India relations witnessed an array of engagements in recent years after the ruling Awami League came to power in 2009.

Connectivity improvement has been a key aspect of the relations for which the Hasina government recently opened transit facilities to India, enabling it to carry goods to its north-eastern states.