SHILLONG: Lack of infrastructure facilities in the border has affected trade activities in Meghalaya border.
The Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), organised an interactive session with importers and exporters on Thursday in order to understand the gap in soft and hard infrastructure facilities of Land Custom Stations (LCSs) in Meghalaya.
The intention was to come up with viable solutions to the problems faced by exporters in the state.
When contacted, the Deputy Director of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), North Eastern Regional Center, Shillong, CJ Thomas said the ICRIER had a face to face interaction with stakeholders, importers and exporters.
“In Meghalaya, exporters of coal, limestone, boulders face a lot of constraint and a number of issues such as bad roads,” he said adding that the meeting had identified a number of issues.
He informed that there are 11 LCSs out of which only 8 are functional whereas 4 are non-functional.
The meeting also brought to light the fact that the state is unable to exploit the LCS for the benefit of the people.
The interactive session was inaugurated by Mawsynram MLA HM Shangpliang who stated that during the pre-independent period, trade flourished between Meghalaya and Bangladesh.
“However, since trade routes are now closed in the post independent era, a heavy drop in trade relations has resulted between Meghalaya and Bangladesh,” he said.
Shangpliang also lamented that both the hard and soft infrastructure at the LCS are very poor and do not give any scope for improvement of trade between the Meghalaya and Bangladesh. Traders in Meghalaya basically exports coal, boulders and limestone but do not import anything from Bangladesh.
He said there is a huge need to export agricultural and food products to Bangladesh by providing proper infrastructure to LCS such as roads, office buildings for customs, electricity, internet connectivity, banking, police station and other facilities to ensure the smooth flow of trade.
(Contd. on P-7)
Bad roads, lack of…
(Contd. from P-3) Shangpliang mentioned that betel nuts from Meghalaya are transported to Guwahati and is later exported to China.
“Instead of selling the betel nuts to Guwahati traders, exporters should look for avenues by which they can directly export to other countries,” he said.
He also urged the traders to have collective responsibility in an effort to make trade between Meghalaya and Bangladesh much more vibrant and encouraged them to learn from Tripura on how to successfully make use of trade relations.
Altogether, 25 exporters including members of exporters association from all LCSs attended the session and expressed their collective desire to improve the hard and soft infrastructure facilities in border areas.
They also related the difficulties faced in border areas particularly connectivity, lack of infrastructure and harassment which traders often face at the hands of the Border Security Force.
Pankaj Vashisht, senior fellow, ICRIER, introduced the workshop and highlighted the objectives of the ongoing research.
ICRIER is currently engaged in a research study on ‘Facilitating India’s Act East Policy: Gap Analysis in Infrastructure at Land Custom Stations (LCS) in North Eastern Region of India’ which is being funded by the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce, Land Port Authority and Government of India.
