New machine to identify goods in no time

Benapole Customs House yesterday introduced a new machine—Raman Spectrometer—to identify contents of imported goods in just 30 seconds, much lower than the 20 days that it usually takes.

The machine can accurately identify 13,000 types of liquids and chemicals in the blink of an eye, which will help a lot to stop import of illegal goods, said Benapole Customs Commissioner Belal Hossain Chowdhury.

“The machine will be very useful to detect banned and harmful chemicals, including drugs and explosives, and squeeze the spread of import under false declaration.”

Over 70 percent or around $3 billion worth of the trade between Bangladesh and India—are carried out through Benapole, the biggest port after Chattogram.

Earlier, businesses had to wait for around 20 days to send and get the test results from Dhaka for the goods they imported, Chowdhury said.

He spoke at the launch of the machine at the auditorium of the customs house in Benapole. The machine uses the method of Raman spectroscopy, where a structural fingerprint of the test subject is provided, by which molecules can be identified. The Raman spectroscopy is based on “The Raman Effect” discovered by Indian physicist Dr CV Raman in 1928.

The World Customs Organisation—an independent intergovernmental body that works for enhancing efficiency of customs administrations—handed over four such machines to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) for free.

The NBR has sent two Raman Spectrometers to Chittagong and Dhaka custom houses, which are yet to start using the machine.

The machine will help honest businessmen avoid being harassed by some port officials who are corrupt, port users opined.