Home ›› 09 Sep 2022 ›› News
Stakeholders spent around Tk 1,10,000 – including fees and charges – to ship goods under the latest transshipment trial with India, which arrived at the Sheola land port via Sylhet’s Tamabil on Thursday.
However, government agencies concerned received only Tk 24,480 of the figure – with the road department making Tk 15,772, customs Tk 7,073 and Chattogram port Tk 1,635, a number of insiders and government officials told The Business Post.
HM Kabir, a deputy commissioner of Chittagong Custom House, said, “A container had arrived at the port on Tuesday under the transshipment facility, which contained 25 tonnes of TMT bars.
“For this, according to the rules, the customs house received TK 7,073 and the road department received TK 15,772.”
He added, “The customs clearance process of this shipment was completed at 10pm on Tuesday, but the trailer which was supposed to transport the container to the Sheola port had suffered a mechanical issue.
“So the consignment left the port at 5am on Wednesday morning instead.”
These trial runs are being conducted under a bilateral Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) agreement signed in 2018 between Bangladesh and India, for the transit and transshipment of goods from the neighbouring country via Chittagong and Mongla ports.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) then fixed the document processing fee for transshipment at Tk 30 per invoice. Fees for transshipment have been fixed at Tk 20 per tonne.
Charges for security have been set at Tk 100 per tonne, escort Tk 50 per tonne, and other administrative charges Tk 100 per tonne. The container scanning fee has been set at Tk 254 per container.
On December 19, 2020, the Road Transport and Highways Division set a fee of Tk 2 per tonne per kilometer for transporting Indian goods. According to Mango Lines Ltd, a shipping agent involved in the process, the first two trial shipments passed through the Chittagong port in July 2020, transporting four containers of goods to Tripura and Assam via the Akhaura land port.
Besides, in the last week of August, a shipment was sent to India through the Mongla port. This week, return consignments will go to Kolkata from Assam via the Chattogram port.
“In the first transshipment trial in 2020, we spent about TK 3.90 lack, including sending four containers of goods from the Chattogram port to Akhaura land port in two consignments,” said Yaqub Shujan Bhuyan, Managing Director of Mango Line Ltd.
“A significant portion of the expenditure is spent on transport and other local private sectors. In the latest transshipment trial, trailer rentals cost around Tk 85,000.”
“However, the cost structure for goods in transit from Mongla port to India is almost the same,” said an NBR official. In the first two trials of transshipment through Chittagong port, it took four days to send goods from India’s Kolkata to north-eastern state of Tripura – which is 1,680 Kilometers away.
Besides, it took three days for the goods to arrive by water from Kolkata to Chattogram, and these goods were sent to India in just 24 hours from the Chittagong port.
According to sources, a container of tea will be sent to Kolkata via the Chattogram port from Sylhet’s Sheola this week. A final review of costs will be made after all trial shipments are completed, insiders say.
