Plant quarantine at ZIA
A Zakaria, Shewrapara, Mirpur
Our expatriates (wage earners) are mostly the unskilled workers working abroad. While returning /visiting home from M.E. and gulf countries, some of them usually carry a small amount of fresh /dry fruits and spices for their own consumption as well as for their near and dear ones. Of course, those have no commercial value. But only at our airport the plant quarantine section of the Ministry of Agriculture has been functioning so conspicuously, something one will not see at any other airport of the world. So we have set an example!The uniform they wear is also dodgy. You will take them to be customs inspectors. They intercept the passengers on their way to green/red channel of customs and escort the selected ones to their counter in the name of examining whether the above articles contain any germs etc and are supposed to charge a nominal fee in taka for the services. One will find a notice board displaying a chart. For fruits up to 5kg no charge but for spices up to one ton Tk 50/ . Here lies the catch. So they can check/examine even a few grams of spices. Isn't the exercise uncalled-for and unnecessary? The simple passengers unaware of rules and such an unexpected encounter get nervous and frightened as they are usually intimidated in many ways. After a long overnight journey in a pressurized cabin the passengers remain tired and fatigued. So they normally give in to their demand to get out of the trap. They have to part with some of their foreign currency to get out of the hassle. The rules have been framed very tactfully! Can we not exempt our wage earners from this uncalled-for harassment by changing the wordings of the so called rules? It makes one laugh when we visit our local markets and find all sorts of poisonous and adulterated food items being openly sold. I appeal to the government to address the issue.
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