India to move oil thru Bangladesh

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is going to sign a memorandum of understanding with Roads and Highways Department (RHD) today for transporting fuel from Meghalaya to Tripura through Bangladesh.

Bangladesh agreed following the request of its neighbouring country, as the local rail network has been snapped due to massive landslides in Assam, officials said.

The MoU will be signed at the Road Transport and Highways Division in the afternoon, ABM Amin Ullah Nuri, secretary of the division, told The Daily Star yesterday.

"We will give them the facility for a temporary period. They [IOC] have to pay a certain charge for using our road network," he said.

As per the plan, IOC, an Indian government-owned oil and gas exploration company, will send its convoys of fuel to Bangladesh via Dawki (in Meghalaya)-Tamabil (in Sylhet) border, said an RHD official.

Then the vehicles will enter Kailashahar in Tripura via Chatlapur check-post in Moulvibazar, the official said, wishing anonymity.

In 2016, IndianOil-AOD, the company's northeastern division, sent a few consignments to Tripura via Bangladesh, when the supply was badly affected due to run down road conditions in Assam's Barak Valley, reported PTI on May 29.

The Indian news agency said after the only rail link connecting Assam's Dima Hasao  and Barak Valley, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura to the rest of the country was washed away in May, the company started moving all its supplies by road via Meghalaya, bearing more than double the cost.

"After the Dima Hasao landslides, the only way to reach Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and southern Assam was the road connectivity via Meghalaya. This route is also landslide prone," IOC Executive Director (IndianOil-AOD) G Ramesh told PTI at that time.

The situation forced IOC, state governments and central government to scout for alternative ways to supply fuel to the southern region of the north-east, he added.

According to the PTI report, IOC was initially planning to move 1,400 kilolitres of fuel via Bangladesh at a total transportation cost of Rs 57.78 lakh, as opposed to Rs 34.22 lakh for their rail route.

The distance for transporting different types of fuel from IOC's Betkuchi depot to Dharmanagar depot via Bangladesh will be 376 km, including 137 km inside Bangladesh, as opposed to 579 km for the normal route through Meghalaya-Barak Valley.

On September 9, 2016, IOC flagged off seven tankers carrying 84,000 litres of kerosene and diesel from its Guwahati depot to Tripura through Bangladesh for the first time, to avoid the dilapidated national highway in Assam, it reported.