The cabinet approved Monday a proposal for ratification of 'The Motor Vehicles Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal and Cargo Vehicular Traffic between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal'.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presided over the day's cabinet meeting at the cabinet division of Bangladesh Secretariat that also endorsed several other accords or acts.
The four road transport ministers of neighbouring countries signed 'The Motor Vehicles Agreement' at a meet in the Bhutanese capital city, Thimphu, on June 15, 2015.
Earlier on June 08, the secretaries of BBIN had sat in a meeting to give a concrete shape to the sub-regional transport accord.
"Now an agreement and a proposal will have to be concluded by the four countries to make the deal operational", cabinet secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters after the meeting.
He said that four nations officials concerned will sit in Dhaka on September 8-9 to finalise the quadrilateral deal and proposal.
"The draft agreement will be finalised by the officials of those countries in September 8-9, 2015 meeting. It will come into effect once all the countries involved signed the agreement," Mr Bhuiyan said.
A cross-border car rally in October will herald the four-nation road connectivity.
The caravan will kick-start the journey from Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Orissa and cover Chittagong and Dhaka of Bangladesh and return to Kolkata in India's Paschimbanga state.
The council of ministers also gave approval for two agreements for the setting up of headquarters of two regional organisations in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka.
The accords are 'The Headquarters Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and South Asian Regional Standards Organisation (SARSO)' and 'The Headquarters Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Secretariat of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi- Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)'.
Mr Bhuiyan said, "The selection of Dhaka as the headquarters of SARSO proves the country's acceptability and reliability. It is the outcome of government's success in diplomacy." The first director-general (DG) of SARSO, Dr Syed Humayun Kabir, has already started work, he said.
He said the agreement was signed as per the international practice and reviewing the suggestions from different ministries and departments and vetting by the ministry of law.
The agreement clearly mentions the privileges of the DG and other officials of SARSO and other relevant matters.
He said the work for setting up headquarters of BIMSTEC is now on stream.
The decision on setting up the BIMSTEC headquarters in Dhaka was taken on March 2014 in Myanmar. The process was started in June 2015.
The first DG of BIMSTEC is from Sri Lanka and directors are from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the BIMSTEC headquarters in Dhaka on September 13, 2014.
The agreement describes the organisation's assets, documents, publications and the privileges of its DG and other officials and how the BIMSTEC maintains communication with Bangladesh government. The cabinet also gave final approval for 'Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation Act 2015' and 'Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (Amendment) Act 2015.
talhabinhabib@yahoo.com
