Home ›› 07 Jan 2022 ›› Front
The Dhaka airport authority has taken all-out measures to facilitate air shipment of perishable items such as vegetables and agro products.
To this end, the authority has installed two explosive detection systems at the airport that will scan all air cargo electronically, thereby saving time and providing optimum security.
Besides, Bangladesh Agricultural Development (BADC) will set up several cold chain systems with big storage capacity to save decayable export products.
Establishing a new warehouse is underway at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HISA).
Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) officials say around 50 to 55 flights with cargo as well as passenger carriers with dedicated space for freight carry 350 to 400 metric tons of agro products to the Middle East every day.
“The export of agricultural products through HISA will be running smoothly from the New Year. Cargo are now loaded onto the flights smoothly following the scanning process,” said Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan told The Business Post.
“Officially this will be inaugurated next week.”
The two new scanners have been set up at the export cargo village of HISA under the Japanese government-funded project “Social and Economic Development Programme” to ensure capacity building for the airport as well as to provide public security.
Two old scanners went dysfunctional from May last year that used to delay the scanning process which was carried out manually.
The new process of scrutinisation will keep at bay illicit drugs and gold smuggling in the guise of agricultural business items mostly exported through the Dhaka airport.
“Commodity congestion has come down from the last month after the airport authority put up scanners,” said Mohammad Monsur, general secretary, Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetables and Allied Products Exporters Association.
“Earlier we used to face barrier to processing export of agro products because of gridlock in export queues. Lack of cold storage and automated system hit us hard and we had to pay for keeping perishable goods on the floor,” added the businessman.
According to the vegetables exporters, they bring exportable items to airport directly from packhouse, and an absence of storage facility was like a pain in their neck.
In the summer season, it turns very troublesome to manually handle 500-600 metric tons of products daily with limited manpower.
More than 20 foreign airlines carry vegetables abroad.
One exporter said the foreign carriers charge high fare on various pretexts and they usually carry dry items.
Air space crisis
Most passenger flights carry 20 per cent export items; sometimes their space is filled up with ready-made garment products.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines has 35 per cent air space for cargo, but it has severe manpower shortage.
In addition, air cargo fare in Bangladesh is higher than that of neighbouring India, and it also varies abnormally from country to country and continent to continent.
CAAB received an allegation in this regard from the vegetables exporter association.
Asked about it, Air Vice Marshal M Mafidur Rahman, chairman, Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, told The Business Post, “We are stressing the importance of export items to achieve our goal as a developed country, and all problems will be solved in coordination with other government agencies.”
