BNP for Tk 1,000 for per tonne of goods to be transhipped

Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Saturday asked the government to set transit fee for per tonne of Indian goods at Taka 1,000 as proposed by NBR.
The party demanded that Bangladesh get a just amount of the money to be saved by the Indian truckers as distance would fell drastically because of the transit route into the north-east states.
BNP spokesman Asaduzzaman Ripon at a news briefing at the party’s central office came up with the party’s stance.
Ripon came down hard on the government for unilaterally fixing the transit fee at Tk 580 for per tonne of Indian goods, ignoring National Board of Revenue proposal of Tk 1,000.
He said the fee is very small and goes against the interest of Bangladesh.
The spokesman said the decision was made in an inter-ministerial meeting on transit-transshipment issue on Wednesday.
He said the incumbent government is morally weak and that is why they cut the fee to Tk 580 from the proposed Tk 1,000 to make India happy.
He told a reporter that the facility Bangladesh is providing to India was not a transit; instead it was transshipment or allowing New Delhi Bangladesh’s corridor.
Ripon said as India would save a hefty amount, BNP is simply demanding for a just share from the transportation cost to be well-saved.
He said experts of both the countries could determine the share of the economised money in the process of transportation.
The spokesman said BNP has cleared its stance that Bangladesh does not object to transit and transshipment but it is important that how much Bangladesh would be economically benefited.
Ripon said the ministers, government officials and advisers who were engaged in the negotiation, could not bargain properly or due to their subservience, the country’s interest could not be well protected.
The BNP leader also condemned the recent killing of a Bangladeshi citizen by the Indian border security force in Joypurhat district.
Referring to the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s proposal that all its member countries be more active in finding out missing people or who disappeared because of enforcement, he asked the government to take initiative anew to this end.
He said police on Friday handed over four BNP men to Chapainawabganj police after 24 days into their abduction. He condemned it.
BNP leaders Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Afzal H Khan were present.

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