NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING

Debate and dilemma of transit issue

M M Ali and Altaf Parvez

From the nineties India has been asking Bangladesh for transit and now, finally, they are
on the verge of actually getting it. However, it hasn't been smooth sailing and controversy
prevails. Innumerable questions hover around the issue and until and unless these
questions are resolved, it will not be easy to grant transit to India. Unless all the irritants
are settled, it will neither be possible to run the process properly nor will it be possible for
Bangladesh to gain benefits for transit. With this in mind, the Transit Study Group (TCG)
analysed the various controversies and debate which surround the transit issue.

What does India want? There are three forms of geographic cooperation in the
movement of goods, and these are: —transit, transhipment and corridor. Each form has a
different significance. Which form is being taken up by India and Bangladesh in this
regard?

Transit means the interstate transportation of goods and passengers over a particular
land or water route in accordance with specific agreement and regulations. While the
term 'transit' is being used in the agreement between India and Bangladesh, its nature is
more on the lines of corridor facilities. If Bangladeshi vehicular movement is held up
during the movement of the transit vehicles, then this is certainly corridor-type facility.
Bangladesh is to grant India this facility, but India is not a landlocked country. Normally
by corridor it is meant giving a certain country control over a certain part of the territory.
While Bangladesh at the moment isn't granting this control to India, India is being given
unilateral use of the route.

Again, as India is transporting the goods at its initiative, it cannot be called

transhipment either.

Transit, transhipment or corridor: How prepared is Bangladesh for transit, transhipment

or corridor?

Whether it is transit, transhipment or corridor, whatever facilities are to be granted —-

the question is whether Bangladesh's road and rail infrastructure is prepared for this.
Everyday experience tells us about the present state of Bangladesh's road infrastructure
and how fit is it to accommodate the country's own transportation of goods and
passengers. Under these circumstances, just what will the state of affairs be if hundreds of
Indian vehicles start plying the existing roads?
Triple load on roads: According to various media reports, if transit is granted, about

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1500 trucks of 15 tons each will ply the transit route. Added to that is the 750
Bangladeshi trucks presently using the possible transit routes. That means a total of 2,250
trucks will use the route every day, triple the present load.

About eight routes are being considered for transit. Except the Banglabandha-Tamabil
and Banglabandha-Akhaura routes, Dhaka is included in all the six remaining routes.
How far are our roads in general, and Dhaka roads in particular, ready to take on this
extra load of trucks?

And when India uses the transit route, it will be plying extremely heavy container-
carrying trucks, much heavier than the average truck. These trucks will be unable to
change lanes and when these massive vehicles will go down the road, all other vehicular
traffic will have to be halted.

How will the cost of transit infrastructure be met? Given the various meetings at a top
policy-making level between Bangladesh and India, implementing the transit deal is now
apparently only a matter of time.

Where the present road system is hardly adequate enough to bear the local vehicles and
passengers, how can it take on the extra load of Indian goods at the same time? There can
be any alternative arrangement of time coordination; that is their vehicles can ply when
our vehicular movement is down to a minimum.

Then there will have to be large parking lots along the route for the Indian trucks. The
construction of such parking facilities, the maintenance of these, plus ensuring security at
these sites, all will entail huge costs. Who will bear the costs? Also, how practical will it
be to use such huge plots of land for parking in such a densely populated country as
Bangladesh?

There are certain Bangladesh officials who are so enthusiastic about granting India
transit, that they contend that Bangladesh will bear all the transit infrastructure expenses.
For instance, merely at the possibility of giving transit to India, recently the Chittagong
Port Authority has implemented 18 projects at the cost of 2,100 crore Taka, according to
a newspaper report published on December 29, 2010.

Taka 150-cr yard: An interview with Musharraf Hossain, Member (Finance),

Chittagong Port Authority, reveals that simply to facilitate the possible parking of Indian
vehicles, a 150-crore Taka transit yard is being constructed. Residents of the adjacent
densely populated area are being evicted for the purpose.

Then there are instances of the opposite too. When Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
visited India and held talks with her Indian counterpart Dr. Manmoham Singh concerning
transit on January 12 last year, plans were laid to declare Ashuganj as a Port of Call and
to set up an Inland Container River Port there at a cost of $36.23 million dollars,
construct second Bhairab Bridge and Second Teesta Bridge at a cost of $120 million
dollars and develop the road infrastructure at Ashuganj for another $34 million dollars.

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India would basically use this route to transport heavy machinery to Agartala where they
would be setting up a large power plant.

However, an on-the-spot survey of the area in November 2010, shows that there are no
signs of any development there and the local residents do not have an inkling of anything
in this regard. (Probe, issue 20, Vol 9). In fact, one rainfall leaves the roads there unfit for
even local vehicle movement, let alone the proposed 28 and 32-wheeler container trucks
bearing heavy machinery weighing 60 to 80 tons. Bangladesh's Inland Water Transport
Authority hasn't even set up any proper office there. Does that mean India will be running
the entire show?

Dhaka's own resources: While Bangladesh is spending its own resources to facilitate
transit for India (Chittagong Port, for example) and handing over transit facilities even
without any infrastructure development (Ashuganj Port, for example), in Myanmar India
is pouring in its investment to develop the road infrastructure in the hope of winning
transit facilities there.

Once 'transit' begins in our country, immediately there will be the need for regular rail
and road renovation which will call for manpower and investment. Over the past decade,
India has kept up the pressure for transit but has made no move whatsoever to help in
infrastructure development.

China, on the other hand, has made significant investment in this sector. Despite having
no direct communication interests here, China has constructed about seven large bridges
in Bangladesh. India has set no such example.

On the contrary, Delhi has submerged Bangladesh into a large amount of debt by mans
of a loan in August 2010, purportedly for investment in transit preparations. Bangladesh
got this loan from the Indian Exim Bank. Bangladesh will use this 100 crore dollar loan
to construct infrastructure for the movement of Indian goods, and yet it will have to repay
each and every penny of the loan, along with interest.

Condition of loan: Not only that, another condition of the loan is that all the equipment
used for the infrastructure development will have to be procured from India. And while
Bangladesh is being forced to swallow this loan, the press reports that the World Bank
has cancelled a loan agreement of $175 crore dollars with Bangladesh as the funds were
lying unutilised ('Rajkut', December 1, 2010). speak aloud. For long it was being said that
India would give $100 crore dollars as 'assistance', but now it has been revealed that this
is a loan.

No security setup: Who will be responsible for the security setup of the transit process?

Security is vitally interlinked with transit, transhipment or corridor, whichever

Bangladesh is granting to its neighbour. The nature of the goods being transported must
be scrutinized and monitored on a regular basis and security must also be provided for the
safe transportation of the goods. Bangladesh lacks facilities for both types of these

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security measures in its existing road infrastructure. So the question naturally arises,
when will this security setup be put in place and who will operate it? It is a vital question
as to who will be in control of security and who will bear the costs involved.

Which route will be used for transit? Even thought eight different routes are under
consideration for Indian transit, the people of this country have no idea whatsoever as to
which points Indian vehicles are likely to enter Bangladesh, which routes will be used
and from which points will they exit Bangladesh to re-enter India.

What will Bangladesh get in exchange of granting India transit facilities?

Whither billions of dollars? It is still not clear how much fee Bangladesh will get in
return for transit, transhipment or corridor facilities. In fact, recently there were
differences of opinion among the policy makers as to whether India will have to pay any
fee at all. India is presently spending about one hundred billion dollars for transporting
goods through the Shilliguri corridor. But there is no information on how much India will
be saving in using Bangladesh territory to transport their goods and if any understanding
has been reached in this regard.

Presently tea from Assam travels about 1400 km to Kolkata to be exported around the
world. It is about 1650 km to travel from that point to Tripura. Yet if transit is granted,
the travel distance between Assam and Tripura will be only 400km. This will be a huge
boon for Indian economy.

It is only natural for Bangladesh to expect to benefit from this, yet in June last year it
was clear that Bangladeshi policymakers are prevaricating over the issue. NBR had
issued an SRO determining a fee for transit, but within just a few days it was withdrawn.
The SRO has fixed a 10,000 taka fee per container and a 1000 taka fee per ton of open
goods.

Even though this is much less than what India has to pay to transport goods over its
own territory, it apparently seems that our policy makers are unwilling to impose this fee.
In fact, any attempts to increase the existing fee for the river transit being presently used
by India have been thwarted.

In 2009-10 when large volumes of Indian goods were being transported by

Bangladesh's river-ways, Bangladesh received only a paltry 4.5 crore Taka as fees (vide
The Financial Express, November 13, 2010). Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith,
speaking in the Secretariat on November 2, 2010, said, "No fees will be imposed on
transit." This certainly was a surprising statement, considering certain quarters over the
last decade or more have been spewing out rhetoric about how many billions of dollars
Bangladesh will earn through transit.

Environmental harm: Who will take responsibility for the environmental harm caused
by transit? Bangladesh is a densely populated country already suffering from a myriad of
environmental problems. Till now there hasn't been any study as to what environmental

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harm will be caused by transit, transhipment etc. provision. In the present global scenario,
and in Bangladesh as well, when any large project is taken up, first a study is carried out
on the impact the project is likely to have on the environment. It is a mystery as to why
this issue has been totally bypassed in granting transit to India.

Another question that looms large in this respect is whether India will play any role in
the rehabilitation of persons displaced by the transit route or pay any compensation for
possible environmental harm caused by transit. For example, Indian company ABC
Construction has been awarded the contract to construct the road from Ashuganj via
Akhaura to Agartala in India. This is for the transport of heavy machinery and goods
known as ODC or over dimensional consignment. In ABC construction's hurried
initiative to expand the 49km road, a nearby canal will be permanently filled and the area
will face serious water-logging. (vide Probe News Magazine, November 5-11, 2010).

There is even a proposal to take the railroad through the world heritage site of the
Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, to facilitate transit and the use to
Mongla Port to carry Indian goods.

In is also a matter of concern as to whether the list of goods for transit will be kept open
or whether it will be specified. The area for which India wants transit is a virtual war
zone. India has to regularly send arms, ammunition and weaponry to those areas rife with
insurgency, which they claim to be independence struggles, of various ethnic groups. It
should be settled whether this transit route will be used to transport such equipment.
After all, this is likely to lead Bangladesh to become the target of ire of these ethnic
groups.

HIV/AIDS risks: How will transit-related health risks be addressed? From the
European, Central Asian and particularly the African experiences, we note that transit
brings along with it great serious health risks. If hundreds of vehicles travel from India
through Bangladesh every day, certain health problems are bound to crop up. Top on the
list is HIV/AIDS.

India, according to official reports, has six million identified AIDS-infected persons.
This outnumbers AIDS patients anywhere else in the world. The main cause of concern is
that the three provinces of India near the Bangladesh border —- Mizoram, Manipur and
Nagaland —- have the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS. In fact, at one end of the transit
route sought by India are these three states.

To make matters worse, it is the Indian truck drivers who are mostly the HIV/AIDS
virus carriers and they are the ones who will be entering Bangladesh. The question is, are
we at all aware of these serious risks? Has any precautionary action whatsoever been
taken?

Has Bangladesh any plan whatsoever of setting up the required facilities for the health
check of the drivers using the transit route through Bangladesh?

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 Again, how prepared is Bangladesh to deal with the smuggling of drugs and drug trade
— an inevitable fallout of transit?

From the experience of Europe, Central Asia and Africa, we see illegal drug trade, the
inevitable fallout of transit. As it is, our trade ties with India are infested with smuggling.
There have been no statements so far as to how transit will exacerbate this situation and
what preventive measures can be taken in this regard.

132 Phensidyl factories: As things stand at present, Bangladesh is facing the menace of
Phensidyl drug being smuggled into the country. Phensidyl has become such a profitable
business for the Indians now that all along their side of the Bangladesh border so far 132
Phensidyl factories have been identified. Though the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB)
has approached the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) with these facts and figures, no
measures have been taken to resolve the matter. In West Bengal alone there are 52
Phensidyl factories. According to a study of Family Health International, India earns 347
crore Rupees through smuggling drugs to Bangladesh alone (News Today, December 29,
2010). At least 32 different kinds of unlawful drugs enter Bangladesh through at least 512
points from India.

The existing scanning mechanisms which Bangladesh has at the moment for its road
and railways have proved to be totally inadequate to deal with this problem. Will more
scanning mechanisms be installed if transit begins? Who will control these scanning
setups? Where will they be installed? None of these questions have been answered so far.
In fact, no separate authority has even been formed to look after the entire matter of
transit.

Unresolved bilateral issues: When there are so many unresolved bilateral issues, why is
only transit being brought to the table?

Whether it is transit, transhipment or corridor, what the facilities may be, the basis of
this must be a mindset of bilateral cooperation. It would only be expected that
Bangladesh will receive equal trade benefits in exchange of granting India transit. This
would include expanded entry of Bangladeshi goods in the Indian market as well as
facilities to transport goods from Bangladesh over Indian territory to Nepal, Bhutan,
Pakistan, and elsewhere.

There are several other unresolved issues Bangladesh has with India - determining the
maritime boundary, demarcation of the land borders, killing of innocent Bangladeshis by
BSF along the borders, water sharing, disastrous impact of Farakka Barrage, proposed
Tipaimukh Dam and water sharing issue of 54 common rivers. All these are matters of
grave concern for Bangladesh.

Then there is the trade imbalance between Bangladesh and India. According to
Bangladesh's Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), the trade
imbalance between the two countries in 2009-10 was about $3.6 billion dollars and this
gap is rapidly and steadily growing.

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 India is singularly Bangladesh's biggest trading partner. India's business in Bangladesh
is $4 billion dollars, while Bangladesh exports only $3.6 million dollars worth of
commodities to India.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau, India exports about 2,086 items to
Bangladesh, while only 168 Bangladeshi items can enter the Indian market. ('Rajkut',
Kaler Kantha, December 1, 2010). Basically Bangladeshi goods can't enter the Indian
market due to the non-tariff barriers. Negotiations have been on in this connection over
the last eight years, but things haven't moved an inch in Bangladesh's favour.

Any Bangladeshi commodity entering the Indian market has to undergo laboratory
tests. India has made this mandatory. It takes anywhere between 40 to 50 days for the
results of this to emerge. India does not recognise laboratory tests run in Bangladesh.
When our policy makers sit for negotiations, they fail to voice these concerns.

Global experience is that without real friendship between two countries and without the
give-and-take mentality, economic cooperation cannot go too far. How far are
Bangladesh's national interests actually being upheld with the old irritants being brushed
aside and transit being brought to the forefront?

Towards the end of the nineties, in a similar hurried manner, and keeping the people in
the dark, the Ganges water sharing treaty was signed. But a decade on, Bangladesh is yet
to receive its fair share of water. All of the bilateral agreements signed between
Bangladesh and India in the past have had the same fate. So even on a regional level the
big question is, why is Bangladesh sitting with India alone to discuss the issue of transit
instead of dealing with this issue multilaterally with other interested South East Asian
countries.

Certain quarters within the government are impatient to hand over transit facilities to
India. Certain quarters in the private sector too are giving full support to the matter. If
transit is granted, India will take goods to its north-eastern states, just when the market
there has opened up to Bangladeshi commodities. So when our business bodies rally in
support of transit, one wonders to which country do they belong and where their
allegiance lies. Will not the trade imbalance between the two countries simply intensify
further?

Are the government committees for transit at all capable of formulating the required
guidelines?

The Transit Study Group feels that given the global realities of today, the exchange of
trade facilities and the involvement in inter-state communication management is
inevitable and unavoidable. In such cases, all countries carry out the necessary studies
and evaluation, and weigh the pros and cons. Transit trade facilities is a universal model,
but no country enters into such an agreement without bargaining, negotiating, studying,
evaluating and without prior preparation. Bangladesh cannot be an exception in this
regard. Only landlocked countries have the special right for transit and use ports of

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neighbouring countries. As for other countries, transit is based on mutual understanding,
cooperation and proven friendship.

The government has created five sub-committees regarding transit. The heads of these
committees had been lobbying in favour of the handing transit over to India, without
bargaining. There is S Rahmatullah, the head of the committee to determine the route and
expense of transit. Then there is the head of the committee for the economic analysis of
transit, Sadeq Ahmed. CPD's Executive Director Mustafizur Rahman is head of the
committee to determine the important issues pertaining to transit. As these persons had
long been vocal in favour of giving India transit over the past decade or so, can these
people actually produce any neutral and professional results? How can political leaders
get neutral and professional research results and take responsible decisions?

[The writers belong to the Transit Study Group (TSG), Dhaka. The TSG is a
multidisciplinary group comprising journalists, doctors, lawyers, environmentalists, tax
experts and other professionals. The objective of the group is not to oppose transit, but to
conduct an in-depth study of the issue and to come up with recommendations in keeping
with national interests. This can provide valuable input to the relevant policymakers in
their decision-making regarding transit.]
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