AGARTALA, August 20 (TIWN): The northeastern states of Tripura to come in international trade map soon once it opens the national highway road to get connected with neighbouring Bangladesh. Aiming to promote business between Sabroom and Bangladesh Chittagong, the government has planned to open a Land Custom Station (LCS) at Anandapara very shortly, source said. The decision to establish LCS at Anandapara was taken when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka way back in 2010.

The source said that prior to the introduction of LCS at Anandapara the government has taken an initiative to construct a bridge over river Feni in Bangladesh because once the double lane bridge is constructed the Mahamoni (Ramgarh) can be connected with Anandapara (Sabroom). The state PWD officials and the engineers are actively engaged to the formal works to get it complete soon so that the construction work can be started at the earliest.

The Direct Project Report (DPR) of the Feni bridge construction work is also in the pipeline. Opening of Anandapara LCS would be meaningless if bridge is not constructed connecting two sides of the river, said official source.

However, once the Agartala – Sabroom gets the proposed double lane road trucks and other lorries could easily make an entrance in to the Tripura capital. The double lane road from Agartala to Sabroom and the rail line linking Sabroom with the capital city is also expected to bring a development to the infrastructure of roads and transportation of Tripura.   

The decision to construct the bridge over the Feni river had come up earlier in a high level meeting chaired by Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.  

Land Custom Stations on the international border are notified under Section 7 of the Customs Act, 1962 by the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance. Development of trading facilities in the Land Custom Stations is done by the State Governments usually with funds from the scheme of “Central Assistance to States for Developing Export Infrastructure and other Allied Activities (ASIDE)” of Department of Commerce.

According to the official during the three months till March this year the trade volume at the border haats rested at .84 crore, but we are looking forward to boost the trade towards touching the hefty profit in future.” The official said at present there are a total of 8 Land Custom Stations (LCSs) here in Tripura amongst which 6 are being opened for export and import trade with Bangladesh.

“During the Financial Year 2014-15 till March 31the total export volume rested at Rs. 1.02 crore whereas the volume of import from Bangladesh rested at Rs. 357.65 crore,” he said.

He also said that earlier during the year 2014 the trade gap between Bangladesh and Tripura was huge due to the fluctuation of currency (Dollar) and also political unrest in Bangladesh had restricted the export and import business for some point of time. “But, now we managed to cover the gap and are looking forward to cover up as a whole in the coming future,” official added.