The first Indian container laden ship, under the transit agreement, arrived at Chattogram port on Tuesday to transport goods by road in the northeastern states of India.

The ship, MV Shejyoti, with four containers of Indian transit goods arrived at outer anchorage of the port. The transit goods are TMT Bars and 100 tons of pulses. The ship is carrying a total of 221 containers of goods from various importers.

After completing the required formalities at the port, the process to send the goods to Akhaura- Agartala land port will begin.
The goods will be transported by Bangladeshi Vehicles to Agartala of Tripura state and Assam through Akhaura-Agartala land port. The consignment of steel products belongs to SM Corporation in West Tripura and the pulse consignment to Jain Traders of Karimganj in Assam.

This trial run of goods transit to India’s northeastern states using Bangladesh territory is the first time in the last 55 years since it stopped following the Indo-Pak war in 1965.

According to port source, the ship was docked at the NCT-1 jetty with state-of-art facilities dedicated for the ships carrying containers on the India-Bangladesh and Chattogram-Pangao (Dhaka) routes.

Omar Farooq, Secretary of Chattogram Port Authority told media that the port authority decided to provide Indian ship ‘First come First service’, a common practice in the port .

The ship carrying transit containers anchored at the jetty at around 1pm. After completing the formalities and payment of all taxes and duties of the port, clearance for unloading the containers was given.

Chattogram Custom House also formed a three-member team for easement and to escort the transit goods from the port. The team enters the port at 3pm Tuesday.

Kamran Hossain, Assistant Revenue Officer of Customs and a member of the escort team said there has been some delay in unloading the transit containers from the ship due to rain.

Earlier, Bangladesh and India signed a ‘coastal shipping agreement’ on the use of the Chattogram and Mongla ports in 2015 for transshipment of goods to and from India.

Both countries signed an agreement in 2018, and a standard operating procedure (SOP) was signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India in October, 2019 in this regard.

This agreement and SOPs permit the movement of goods in Bangladesh through waterways, rail, road or multi-modal transport.
Eight routes have been provided under the agreements. Goods reaching Chattogram and Mongla sea ports would be transported through road, rail, and water routes to Agartala in Tripura via Akhaura; Dawki in Meghalaya via Tamabil; Sutarkandi in Assam via Sheola, and Srimantpur in Tripura via Bibirbazar.