The Hindu Business Line : Asean invites India to participate in open sky regime

Strengthening logistics
Aviation in India till recently had been either Delhi or Mumbai centric
Kolkata henceforth would occupy a very important position in the country's aviation map
Stress on need for promoting river route to boost trade with Bangladesh
The land route via the Petrapole-Benapole border handled nearly 60 per cent of the total trade

Kolkata , Sept. 12

Mr Ajay Prasad, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, said here on Tuesday that India had been requested by the Asean to participate in the open sky regime due to be launched among the Asean nations from 2010.

"We are examining the initiative and we welcome it," Mr Prasad said while addressing the CII programme `Logistics East - Towards sustainable competitive advantage.'

In 2003, the then Prime Minister had offered the Asean countries to step up their flights to various destinations in India; subsequently, the present Prime Minister, at last SAARC meeting, also made similar offers to SAARC countries and in both the cases the response had been encouraging.

Kolkata's emergence

As the trade and economic relations between India and South-East Asian nations showed steady growth, Kolkata too was set to emerge as the natural hub for traffic, both passenger and cargo, to and from these nations. The aviation in India till recently had been either Delhi or Mumbai centric but not any more.

Kolkata henceforth would occupy a very important position in the country's aviation map and the signs were already visible, with so many foreign lines offering services from here. The proposed modernisation of Kolkata airport, according to rough estimates, would cost around Rs 3,000 crore, he added.

River route

Dr A.K. Chanda, Chairman of Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), in his address, stressed the need for promoting river route as a means not only to boost trade with Bangladesh in general but also to ease the pressure on the heavily congested present land route, particularly through the Petrapole-Benapole border.

He particularly referred to Narayanganj port. The bulk of the containers handled at Chittagong port got stuffed/destuffed at Narayanganj, which is near Dhaka. KoPT, the Chairman said, would charge concessional rate, 20 per cent of the normal wharfage, for traffic to be moved between Kolkata port and Narayanganj.

The land route via the Petrapole-Benapole border handled nearly 60 per cent of the total trade between India and Bangladesh and it would be in the fitness of things if the trade opted for an alternative river route to Narayanganj, he added.

Customs congestion

Mr Muhammad Imran, Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh, pointed out that only six out of a total 36 designated land customs stations were used for trade between the two countries. While three of them were located in West Bengal, the three others in the North-East. He conceded that the trade via the land customs station at Petrapole-Benapole was heavily congested but that was largely due to the lack of infrastructure on the Indian side of the border. On the Benapole side (Bangladesh), the situation was much better, he said.

The cargo movement between the two countries by the river route, as he pointed out, was governed by a bilateral water transit treaty. Conceding that the potentials of the trade between the two countries by the river route had not been fully unlocked, he said that the trade to India's north-east too could be undertaken by the same river route.

Mr Nirupam Sen, West Bengal Minister for Commerce and Industry, while inaugurating the programme, gave an account of the various steps being taken by the West Bengal Government to improve connectivity. The steps included, among others, upgradation of 764 km of National Highway into four and six lanes, improving connectivity to Haldia dock, examining the scope of launching a mini port as well as a deep-sea port to strengthen the existing port facilities in the State, setting up Special Economic Zones and developing the 550-km-long Haldia-Farakka stretch of the National Waterway in West Bengal into a multi-modal cargo traffic system connecting Nepal, Bhutan, North Bengal and North-East.