Inadequate facilities make Hili Land Port lose its attraction to traders

The Hili land port of Dinajpur has been losing its attraction to exporters and importers due to inadequacy of facilities. Traders are now turning to other ports with better facilities. However, with a current storage capacity of 2,000 tonnes, the port has a high potential to facilitate bilateral trade with neighbouring India. Mismanagement is rampant while unwelcoming behaviour and alleged corruption by customs officials reduce the port’s attraction. The land port features a warehouse, open stack-yard, truck terminal, weighbridge, standby power supply, an administrative building, security posts and boundary walls. These facilities are mostly used to handle import shipments of stone, maize, wheat, cumin, onion, chili and other items while only a small quantity of rice bran oil is exported to India.
The port has not seen any significant improvement although the present infrastructure is inadequate. Around 300 trucks come to Bangladesh every day through the port which has inadequate facilities to handle such a large number of shipments. In the Indian part, there is only a single road stretching between a truck stop to the land port that needs to be widened immediately. The road on the Bangladesh side, starting from the land port to Panama Hili Port Link Ltd, also needs to be widened as the distance between the two points is around one kilometre.
Traffic congestion on the approach roads is a common sight in both India and Bangladesh. Traders have asked for the government’s attention to make the land port efficient to exploit its potential. The government and the port authorities should invest more thus the port would become vibrant and generate more revenue. Necessary infrastructure should be created and management made transparent, accountable and responsible to the people. Only then the land port will again become capable of attracting exporters and importers.