India to ask for use of Chittagong port to transport grain to Northeast

India is likely to urge Bangladesh to allow it to use the Chittagong port for transportation of food grains to its Northeastern states.

The Indian food ministry has asked the External affairs ministry to take up the issue with its counterpart in Bangladesh.

But the inadequate infrastructure in Ashuganj river port on the Bangladesh side became evident during the pilot project involving transportation of food grains to Tripura from Andhra Pradesh through the river port.

Recently Bangladesh had agreed to allow its neighbours to use the Chittagong sea port which will not only earn foreign currency for Bangladesh but also help its neighbour India in quicker transportation of food grain from Punjab, Haryana or Andhra Pradesh to its landlocked north-eastern states and reduce cost and time of transportation.

Sources said that the Cabinet secretariat has also discussed the issue with shipping ministry and New Delhi would take up the proposal with Dhaka shortly.

Chittagong is located just 75 km from Tripura southern most bordering town Sabroom which is separated by river Feni and around 250 km away from Belonia which is connected by road.

Already work for construction of a bridge on the river Feni has been approved and is being funded by the Indian government to connect Sabroom with Ramgarh in Bangladesh.

Recently due to a huge disruption caused by gauge conversion work on rail tracks in hill areas of Assam, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) transported two consignments of 10,000 tonne of rice each from Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh to Agartala.

This was part of a pilot project using Ashuganj river port on Meghna River, which is located about 40-odd km away from Agartala border.

However, it took four months to transport the grain because of water level at Ashuganj port was too low to allow big ships in. They had to end at Chittagong port and the cargo had to be transferred from containers to smaller ones.

On a land route, the distance between Kolkata and Agartala would be around 1,600 km, which is reduced to few hundred kilometres if one takes Bangladesh route.