Will Give A Fillip To Assam’s Trade & Commerce: Chandra Mohan Patowary

GUWAHATI: India has got access to Chittagong Port in Bangladesh after several decades, a development that will bring about a sea change in Assam’s trade and commerce sector through waterways with the neighbouring country.

In undivided India, Chittagong was a very important port for Assam and rest of the country.

Act East Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, while addressing a press conference at Janata Bhawan here on Monday, said the Bangladesh Government recently gave its Cabinet nod to allow India to have an access to Chittagong port. India was denied access to this port for various political reasons in 1957, he said. India and Bangladesh are going to sign a protocol to this effect soon.

“The Narendra Modi Government took up the issue with the right earnestness with Dhaka, and now we’ve gained access to the commercially important port in Bangladesh. The development will be hugely beneficial for Assam in doing trade and commerce with Bangladesh and other countries through the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers,” Chandra Mohan Patowary said.

He said the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has already sanctioned Rs 250 crore for the Bangladesh Government to carry out dredging on the part of the mighty Brahmaputra that flows through the neighbouring country.

When asked about the status of the ambitious project to construct Expressways along both sides of the Brahmaputra, Patowary said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is preparing the DPR of the project. He also said the Union Ministry of Road Transport is preparing DPRs to construct six new flyovers in Bongaigaon, Gorchuk, Lokhra & Basistha in Guwahati, Nagaon and Dibrugarh.

On other hand, Patowary said the present BJP regimes at the Centre and State are taking a number of path-breaking initiatives to implement the Act East Policy. Accordingly, Ministry of Civil Aviation and State Government decided to open six international air routes namely, Guwahati-Dhaka, Guwahati-Bangkok, Guwahati-Kuala Lumpur, Guwahati-Kathmandu, Guwahati-Hanoi and Guwahati-Yangon. The first flight to Dhaka has already taken off. The Guwahati-Bangkok flight service will start soon. The remaining flights are expected to take off within this financial year, he said.

According to Chandra Mohan Patowary, the Civil Aviation Ministry responded favourably and along with the State Government, a new scheme named International UDAN was drafted. The State Government has already released a Viability Gap Funding (VGF) of Rs. 100 crore for three years to make this dream a reality, he said.

Patowary said the historic Rupsi airport in Dhubri district, which was abandoned for long, is currently being renovated and likely to be operational by the end of this year. He said the government is trying to operate a flight between Lakhimpur & Delhi via Guwahati from Lilabari airport. The airports in Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Jorhat are being expanded and modernized, he said, adding that there is an effort to operate daily flights from Tezpur airport under the Regional Connectivity Scheme.

Patowary said geo-strategic location of North-East and Assam should be leveraged in this region to catapult India’s presence in the ASEAN and BBN (Bangladesh-Bhutan-Nepal) regions. He said the State Government is in regular touch with officials and representatives of ASEAN and BBN countries to effectively implement the Act East policy.

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