Indo-Bangladesh transshipment: 4-lane Cumilla-B’baria highway on cards

The government is taking up a fresh Tk 7,188 crore project to build a four-lane highway from Cumilla to Brahmanbaria that would improve connectivity between the port city and Sylhet and also make the transshipment arrangements with India more practicable.

The much-talked-about transshipment facility for Indian goods to its landlocked North Eastern Region (NER) using Bangladesh's two seaports and inland waterways, roads and rail network has failed to take off in a big way in the absence of proper infrastructure.

To address the bottleneck, the Indian government has agreed to fund a raft of connectivity projects in Bangladesh under its $7.36 billion lines of credit.

But the projects are progressing at a snail's pace, leaving the landmark transit arrangement between the two countries, which share the fifth longest border in the world spanning 4,096 kilometres, largely underutilised.

The four-lane in the eastern part of Bangladesh, which is adjacent to India's NER states, would help the cause and also enhance a portion of the 285 km journey by road from Chattogram, which houses the main seaport, and Sylhet, Bangladesh's fourth largest city.

Of the total project cost of Tk 7,188.66 crore, Tk 2,810.65 crore would come from the Indian LoCs.

The project, which entails constructing a 50-km four-lane and 11 km overpass from Cumilla's Mainamati to Brahmanbaria's Dharkhar, will be placed in today's meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council for approval.

The four-lane, which is expected to be operational by June 2026, will join the national highway and the 50-km four-lane that is being built from the Ashuganj river port to the Akhaura land port.

This would enable Indian goods to reach its northeastern states faster.

Also at today's meeting, another slow-moving project taken up in 2016 to aid in transshipment -- the Tk 477.8 crore project to construct a dual-gauge rail line from Akhaura to India's Agartala -- will be placed for its fourth revision.

This time, the Bangladesh Railway would be seeking an extension of a year to wrap up the project, which is being implemented mostly with Indian grant.

As of June, the project's deadline after its third revision, its financial progress is 29.39 percent, shows a railways ministry document.

The project, under which a 14.26 km dual-gauge rail line is being constructed, was delayed due to the pandemic, said Md. Abu Zafor Miah, its in-charge.

"Since it is being implemented with Indian grant, everything is coming from India. The factories in India were shut for some time for Covid and there were travel restrictions too."

But work is going on in full swing now.

"We are hopeful of completing the project by June next year," he said, adding that India has almost completed the work to lay a 10 km dual-gauge line at their end.

The project though has become a symbol of the slow pace of the development works being implemented with Indian LoCs.

As of June, only $1.1 billion of the $7.36 billion LoCs have been used, according to data from the finance ministry.

In fiscal 2020-21, $142 million was disbursed, and in the following year, $324 million.

Six other projects are being implemented by the BR with Indian LoC and their financial progress range from nil to 82.15 percent.