The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) and the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) jointly built the Pangaon Container Terminal (PCT) on the bank of the Buriganga river at Pangaon in south Keraniganj in order to reduce heavy traffic in Dhaka-Chittagong road for increase in container carrying trucks. In line with this, the CPA procured three vessels which are not currently functioning. Strange! Just a couple of months back the three vessels were procured and became non-functioning. There is a bangla saying "Sharker Ka Mal Doria May Dhal". Certainly, there are loopholes and of course, there are solutions. The business community and travellers of Dhaka-Chittagong road demand quick solutions as sufferings of people are getting worst day-by-day for container trucks in this road. Because of heavy traffic, the exporters feel uncertainty about their time-bound goods to the Chittagong port; but vessels take only 14 hours to carry goods to Chittagong with 'bill of lading' which is not allowed by road. Vessels are able to carry at least 16 containers whereas the truck can take only two containers and create trouble to passengers of the Chittagong road. Considering this, businesspersons demand Pangaon functioning in full swing.
According to the current law, classed vessels - standard and operating conditions assigned by the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) - are not allowed to carry goods on inland waters. Towards this end, Chittagong Port Authority has been vested with the responsibility of its operation and handling the necessary equipment of Inland Container Terminal (ICT) built at Pangaon. Apparently, this is good as the CPA has experiences for long and the BIWTA capitalised its experiences to de-stuff the goods from Chittagong to Pangaon because most of the incoming and outgoing goods are destined for nearby Narayangonj and Dhaka area. The authority planned to handle 1, 60,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) at the end of the second phase of the project period. Accordingly, the BIWTA received applications from Bangladeshi businesspersons and so far 32 licenses - one per applicant - were issued which are highly criticised because they were given on political consideration. One of the licences was given to a former minister with no business record.
Therefore, policymakers should rethink and restrategise the country's inland waterways commensurate with other competitive surface modes. Again, the inland water transport (IWT) infrastructure is not as well-established in Bangladesh as roads and railways. Inland waterways suffer from a gradual decline in navigable length and on account of service quality and safety standards.
The economy of the country is growing in size. Accordingly, the trend of containerisation in Bangladesh has steadily grown and these days, both Chittagong and Mongla ports receive huge number of containers because of increased activities mainly in the ready-made garments (RMG) sector. Chittagong Port handles the lion's share of containers reaching Bangladesh, say 75 per cent, and most of them are destined foor Dhaka-Narayanganj region. Of this, the major volume is transported by roads and less than 10 per cent by the railways. It has been reported that the Dhaka-Chittagong highway is already congested with heavy traffic and only because of this, the highway is being converted into a four-lane one. The policy-makers need to realise that four lanes are not the solution because the highway cannot cater to the increasing number of containers; roads are mainly for passengers.
Containers cannot be carried in any cargo ship. Therefore, vessel prototype should be country-specific. Otherwise, Protection and Indemnity (P & I) insurance is not covered for the vessels. Realizing this, the authority trained experts and ministerial persons abroad so that they can design the vessels required to be purpose-built especially for carrying and handling containers. Private parties are to be active to enter this unexplored new business field because the BIWTC as a public organisation may have some problems to materialise this issue for legal and political reasons. This can be overcome through public-private partnership (PPP). The Pangaon terminal is also expected to be able to handle the container vessels through encouraging private parties - local and international. The government should only play the role of a patron.
The prevailing situation in transport sector is sending unfavorable messages to the inland water transport operators who are getting upset and may shift to more profitable business ventures. This does not augur well for the country as this will lead to further deterioration of the country's inland waterways. The PPP can be the most valuable solution and FDIs will be attracted. It's possible because the PPP provision priorities the port development (sea, river and land) including inland container terminals, inland container depot and other services.
The potential of the PCT remains unexploited. What is needed at present is political determination to set priorities properly considering the country's present needs and future aspirations. The immediate aim should be to implement PPP for merchant hauling - the cargo transportation from one port to another port - through Pangaon as the port of destination so that the bill of lading can be issued from the Pangaon terminal if any export vessel leaves from the terminal. Let Pangaon solve a long-standing problem of cargo transportation.
The writer is an Assistant Professor of Finance & Banking at Bangladesh Open University mizan2006@yahoo.com
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