A view of transit
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Bangladesh, as the latest reports in the media do tend to suggest, will earn almost nothing from giving transit to India. It is an Awami League (AL) hyper projection only that Bangladesh will develop by giving transit to India and earn $50 million per year. That is obviously nothing big. Expatriate Bangladeshis are in a position to remit $500 million or even $5.0 billion happily to the GOB annually if they are persuaded properly and shown the way to making investments in their home country with reasonable assurance of returns.
It could prove foolhardy to give transit in a blanket form to India and ultimately sacrifice Bangladesh's independence and interests. The situation is not favourable yet for Bangladesh to give transit to India. Unless, the Indian leaders are prepared amply well to really extend win-win situations for both countries, offering transit to India in a blanket manner, as it is being sought now to extended to India. Mare pretensions about a win-win situation for both India and Bangladesh will serve no useful and sustainable progress. India is otherwise a regional power and many people in this region and outside consider it only to be willing to show its much to suppress, exploit and dominate its small neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.
This transit in its currently proposed form will be greatly harmful for Bangladesh. It will only benefit the present ruling party as India will give it all the support to stay in power, forever.
Those who are not directly involved in politics, especially those who don't AL partisan ones have reasons to consider that such transit facilities are now being realised for India will not provide Bangladesh any real benefit. Even after this, if there is any profit to be gained out of offering transit facilities to India without any tangible benefit for Bangladesh, general Bangladeshi people will never see its face. Profit is for leading lights of the ruling party only and their promise is worthless junk.
Theoretically, it was earlier projected that Bangladesh will receive annually a some of Tk 3.0 billion from the transit fees of India but practically we see that effort is being made carefully and skillfully to give this facility to India largely at free. Some leading lights in the government of Bangladesh (GOB) and also either in the ruling party are on record for telling the media that it would mean a savage-like behaviour on the part of Bangladesh to ask for transit fees from India.
So, whatever infrastructure we develop, as long as the incumbent government remain in power, it will hardly be in any position to get any justified amount of transit fees from India. And whether this government is in power or not, it will also be de facto deficit - we shall never get effective transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through India except probably for few days of stunts only.
In pure language, we find it difficult to understand well why the government is not really able to look into the eyes of Indian government and speak straight forward about the interests of Bangladesh and so. Unless this is done, there is hardly no hope that India would give us due transit fees. And India, as the public perception in Bangladesh is, to put it frankly, is most unlikely to leave any scope for Bangladesh to earn money by providing transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through Bangladesh to cripple its Calcutta port.
Rather, what India, as some people think not all without a rationale in view of past experiences about dealing with the authorities concerned in India, is likely to pursue a course that may force Bangladesh to do is that transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through Bangladesh would be quite free or with a token fee but the transit fees through India from Bangladesh to Nepal and Bhutan would be quite high. That will sought to be done by India to earn good money at the cost of Bangladesh facilities. The "chicken-heartedness" of the "big brother" in this region is known to most people in most South Asian countries.
Things would have certainly been different in South Asia, interms of effective regional cooperation in a win-win situation for all concerned, if Indian leaderships would have changed their mindset and committed themselves really positive friendship with its neighboring countries. There have been not too examples about India's broadness of mind since its creation to that end. This makes it all the more important for the people of Bangladesh at this stage to be fully aware of that.
Are we getting any transit fees now as a good number of Indian ships carrying goods are being transited through Ashugonj border? 120-wheel trailers are reportedly being used to carry hundreds of tonnes of goods of India for building a power plant in India's Tripura state. Hour after hour of jams now cripple the domestic traffic on Dhaka - Sylhet road for this transit purpose. Our roads are tearing down incredibly fast and ferries are being unable to pass these abundant heavy goods of India smoothly.
It could prove foolhardy to give transit in a blanket form to India and ultimately sacrifice Bangladesh's independence and interests. The situation is not favourable yet for Bangladesh to give transit to India. Unless, the Indian leaders are prepared amply well to really extend win-win situations for both countries, offering transit to India in a blanket manner, as it is being sought now to extended to India. Mare pretensions about a win-win situation for both India and Bangladesh will serve no useful and sustainable progress. India is otherwise a regional power and many people in this region and outside consider it only to be willing to show its much to suppress, exploit and dominate its small neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.
This transit in its currently proposed form will be greatly harmful for Bangladesh. It will only benefit the present ruling party as India will give it all the support to stay in power, forever.
Those who are not directly involved in politics, especially those who don't AL partisan ones have reasons to consider that such transit facilities are now being realised for India will not provide Bangladesh any real benefit. Even after this, if there is any profit to be gained out of offering transit facilities to India without any tangible benefit for Bangladesh, general Bangladeshi people will never see its face. Profit is for leading lights of the ruling party only and their promise is worthless junk.
Theoretically, it was earlier projected that Bangladesh will receive annually a some of Tk 3.0 billion from the transit fees of India but practically we see that effort is being made carefully and skillfully to give this facility to India largely at free. Some leading lights in the government of Bangladesh (GOB) and also either in the ruling party are on record for telling the media that it would mean a savage-like behaviour on the part of Bangladesh to ask for transit fees from India.
So, whatever infrastructure we develop, as long as the incumbent government remain in power, it will hardly be in any position to get any justified amount of transit fees from India. And whether this government is in power or not, it will also be de facto deficit - we shall never get effective transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through India except probably for few days of stunts only.
In pure language, we find it difficult to understand well why the government is not really able to look into the eyes of Indian government and speak straight forward about the interests of Bangladesh and so. Unless this is done, there is hardly no hope that India would give us due transit fees. And India, as the public perception in Bangladesh is, to put it frankly, is most unlikely to leave any scope for Bangladesh to earn money by providing transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through Bangladesh to cripple its Calcutta port.
Rather, what India, as some people think not all without a rationale in view of past experiences about dealing with the authorities concerned in India, is likely to pursue a course that may force Bangladesh to do is that transit facilities to Nepal and Bhutan through Bangladesh would be quite free or with a token fee but the transit fees through India from Bangladesh to Nepal and Bhutan would be quite high. That will sought to be done by India to earn good money at the cost of Bangladesh facilities. The "chicken-heartedness" of the "big brother" in this region is known to most people in most South Asian countries.
Things would have certainly been different in South Asia, interms of effective regional cooperation in a win-win situation for all concerned, if Indian leaderships would have changed their mindset and committed themselves really positive friendship with its neighboring countries. There have been not too examples about India's broadness of mind since its creation to that end. This makes it all the more important for the people of Bangladesh at this stage to be fully aware of that.
Are we getting any transit fees now as a good number of Indian ships carrying goods are being transited through Ashugonj border? 120-wheel trailers are reportedly being used to carry hundreds of tonnes of goods of India for building a power plant in India's Tripura state. Hour after hour of jams now cripple the domestic traffic on Dhaka - Sylhet road for this transit purpose. Our roads are tearing down incredibly fast and ferries are being unable to pass these abundant heavy goods of India smoothly.