Tripura, northeast will benefit from access to two Bangladesh ports: Biplab Kumar Deb

GUWAHATI: Along with the whole of Northeast, Tripura in particular will benefit from the agreement on Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which will give India access to Bangladesh's Chittagong and Mongla ports, as it will bring down transportation cost, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said.
Among the seven agreements signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on October 5 was the SOP on the use of the ports in Chittagong and Mongla.
At the India-Bangladesh Stakeholders' Meet in Guwahati on Tuesday, Deb said the access to the ports meant that dependence on Haldia port in West Bengal will reduce, bringing down the distance for transporting goods to the region.
"It takes over 1,200 km for goods to reach from the Haldia port to the region. Access to the Chittagong port will cut down the distance by almost half. The distance between Guwahati and Chittagong is about 600 km. This means a lot to the region, which has to import goods from other parts of the country," Deb said.
"The whole of Northeast will benefit because of reduced distance for transportation of goods. Bangladesh too will benefit in terms of revenue," Deb said.
Northeast shares 1,741 km border with Bangladesh, of which Tripura has the longest 856 km.
"Time has come to make use of the Chittagong port for the benefit of Northeast as well of Bangladesh. We have to look at connectivity from the perspective of mutual benefit," Union Minister of State for Road Transport, Gen (retd) V K Singh said.
Singh said works on the multi-modal transport facility that is coming up at Jogighopa in Bongaigaon district of Assam should be completed at the earliest for movement of goods from Bhutan and Nepal up to the Chittagong port.
"All hurdles should be sorted out for the multi-modal transport facility at Jogighopa at the earliest. We need to make connectivity mutually beneficial," Singh said.