(Sample Material) Study Kit on Current Affairs for UPSC Mains Examination
Biodiversity, Environment, Security & Disaster Management: Message from the Indo-Bangladesh Border: ‘Banijya Basati Lakkhi
Gautam Sen
On July 21, 2016, the prime ministers of India and Bangladesh jointly inaugurated, through video-conferencing, Asia’s largest Integrated Check-Post (ICP) at Petrapole, 95 km from Kolkata, in North 24-Parganas district of West Bengal, with the West Bengal chief minister too joining on the occasion. This is regarded as a landmark development towards strengthening bilateral trade as well as the border management process.
The Petrapole ICP, encompassing a modern land customs station, with ancillaries spread over nearly 100 acres, will have adequate passenger amenities, facilities for currency exchange and customs clearance, cargo processing and inspection, warehouse and cold storage, quarantine laboratory, etc. for the expeditious clearing of goods and the facilitation of movement of people. It will also ensure comprehensive security oversight on the movement of materials and people. The significance of this development can be appreciated by considering the fact that more than 50 per cent of India-Bangladesh trade is undertaken through this ICP. During 2015-16, trade valued at more than Rs. 15,000 crore was transacted through this point, which is more than all the land ports and customs stations of India, with about 1.5 lakh trucks and 15 lakh people passing through it.
A decisive initiative for a better border management system, including the setting up of ICPs and land-ports with comprehensive functionalities, was taken by the Government of India quite some time ago during the 11th Plan period (2007-2012). This came in the context of consensual acceptance by different governments in New Delhi of the need for promoting a framework for the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Programme. Since 2010, international agencies like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have also assisted such initiatives involving India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. However, in 2006 itself, the Cabinet Committee on Security had accorded in principle approval for establishing 13 ICPs, with seven in Phase-1 including one at Petrapole at an initially estimated cost of Rs. 172 crore. The land customs station already existing at Petrapole was to be upgraded and subsumed into an ICP. Construction started in 2010. Since 2012, the Government of India has attempted to factor in improvements in the Petrapole ICP project, in the light of the experiences gained with the first ICP operational at Attari on the India-Pakistan border in Punjab and the working of the ICP at Agartala along the Bangladesh border.