by our special correspondent:
The hands that stopped the exim business from taking off at Petrapole now set the ball rolling for the exim trade. However till June 6 the business is yet to start but is expected to start from June7. ” We had sought intervention from the chief minister Mamata Banerjee to set up a standard operating procedure (SOP)to start the stalled exim trade,” said Gopal Seth , senior Trinamul leader of Bongan and chairman of the regional transport authority of the district.According to Seth an informal meeting was held at Petrapole with Indian and Bangladeshi representative and including all sector associated with the exim trade were present at the discussion .
Seth clarified that earlier Trinamul had supported the villagers to block road and stop reade because there was a chance that the truck drivers coming from worst hit states may be the corona transmitter in the area.However after two months of lock down as economy taken a worst hit the decision to open the trade was welcomed by all. Kartick Chakrabarty secrertary of clearing agents association said ” The trade is open in paper only. But in reality it was closed from the day lockdown started.So unless it reopens and transactions starts really we dont find any reason to rejoice. We cannot understand why exim was stalled at all.”said Chakrabarty.
Earlier the central government repeatedly sent letters to the chief secretary of the state to start the trade.But even after firing 4 such letters the exim trade was stopped.Local traders however blaming the process designed by the North 24 parganas district magistrates office as a reason trade came to stand still.” In that we were not allowed to deliver goods at Benapole godown.Rather we were asked to offload in No man’s land. From there the porters will take away the goods to godown or in truck in Bangladesh side.This system did not work ,” said a trader associated with exim trade. In a 16 points mutually understanding it was decided that a pool of 150 ( including extra) drivers will be created who will take the trucks to Bangladesh not more than 500 meters from zero point. They will use PPE kit by the exporters.These drivers will remained quarantined in side landport an will not be able to meet the outsiders.The truck that will go and come back along with the trucks coming for import will be sanitised by landport authority. The stranded trucks of outside state will return to their respective state immediately after unloading goods at Bangladesh.Landport auhthority, exporters, warehousing staffs, local civil administration and panchayat have to coordinate the entire effort.The entire stock of stranded vehicles had to clear their goods by June14.
The customs officials however said that lack in infrastructure to check and prevent corona transmission is major reason behind the delay. Even the ICP was not equipped to tackle the situation. As a result nearly 2000 trucks remained stranded fro the period .However local BJP leader Debdas Mondal alleged that factional feud among the local trinamul leaders are holding back the trade. ” A group of the Trinamul wanting to start the trade but other is resisting it for their own feud.In fact factionalism is holding back the trade.” said Mondal.
