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With officials from Nepal, India and Bangladesh visiting New Delhi from March 7-8, these respective governments have agreed to open at least one or two transport routes for passenger vehicles to pass through under the sub-regional initiative Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN).
The meeting was held to discuss the Passenger and Cargo Protocols that needs to be crystal clear in the definition for implementing the BBIN Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) for the regulation of passenger, personnel and cargo traffic between the countries. In the meeting, the officials have reached an understanding to operate the Kakarvitta-Kolkata-Dhaka or the Biratnagar-Kolkata or both routes in the next six months.
But this transport corridor will only come to fruition after all the countries give their official go-ahead after doing detailed studies on the matter. And there are still details needed to iron out like what are the documents that are going to be needed to be recognised mutually by all the countries for travel to pass through the borders between the involved countries.
While the implementation of BBIN which was signed in 2015 has been slow, many studies have shown promise and potential for the BBIN MVA between the member states. World Bank has reported that while trade has increased by six times between the participants of BBIN from 2005 to 2019, there is still massive potential with an estimated 93 per cent for Bangladesh, 50 per cent for India and 76 per cent for Nepal.
Photo Credit: [Bhaskarrijal/Wikivoyage]
