Market to be opened twice a week from October 7
TURA: In an attempt to improve trade conditions at Kalaichar Border Haat, a joint meeting was convened after three and half years between South West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner, Ramkumar S, Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate Kurigram, Bangladesh Sultana Pervin and the border haat management committee from both countries at Kalaichar Boder Haat.
The common agenda of the meeting was matters related to hygiene, sanitation and maintenance of haat premises.
The agenda from the Indian side was to review steps taken for construction of Common Facility Building; to discuss on the amendment of MOU dated April 8, 2017 between India and Bangladesh, exchange of locally produced items and also other matters related to provision of water supply, repairing of existing toilets besides others.
From the Bangladesh side, they laid emphasis on construction of temporary shelter in border haat premises, expansion of sellingproducts and border haat’s time to twice a week and list of vendors and vendees of both sides and selling system in haat premises.
Addressing the meeting, Pervin said, “Bangladesh and India have maintained healthy relationship all these years and we are grateful to India for helping us to achieve Independence. Border Haat is a unique area and in order to improve business with India, we have to sit together and try to solve problems we face. It may not be solved overnight but with discussions both countries can jointly minimize problems being faced by locals in the border area”, she said.
As it was understood from the earlier MOU that each vendee should have limited purchase of only $200/day,
the Bangladesh team inquired if any receipt is provided to the traders from Indian side so as to give them the idea about the rates of the goods being purchased.
To this, Ramkumar replied that it is the duty of the customs officials in India to check issues related to goods as it is upto them to fix the rate as per the market value of the country and also issue a receipt.
Later, expressing his gratitude to the Bangladesh team, Ramkumar announced that idea of Border Haat itself is to function without receipts and give business opportunities to locals in the border area.
“This is one of the poorest areas in the state and such opportunities have reduced militancy issue in the area restoring peace after years”, he stated.
The Indian vendees have expressed their dissatisfaction as they are not receiving enough products from Bangladesh to buy.
They demanded more products like melamine, textile and plastic RFL products to which the Bangladesh team agreed to meet to their demands.
It was decided that the Border haat market which is open only on Wednesdays will be opened for two days, Monday and Wednesday from October 7 from 10 am to 3pm .
Modular toilets will be installed inside the borders of both the countries. Flooring of the market shed will be done by the haat committee members from both the countries.
It was also decided that there will be a joint meeting every six months regarding border haats in order to strengthen the trade relationship between India and Bangladesh.
Among the officials present in the meeting were Rituraj Ravi, Superintendent of Police, Ampati, M K Marak, Border Development Officer, Zikzak, S. P Marak, Border Area Development Officer, Kalaichar and D F R Marak, General Manager, DCIC representing India. Officials representing Bangladesh were Md. Merhajul Alam, Superintendent of Police, Kurigram; Lt. Col. S.M Azad, 35 BGB Bn, Jamalpur and Jiluja Sultana, Additional District Magistrate, Kurigram.