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Wagah’s other parade to stop from October 1

— File photo: AP

ENDING HUMAN TRUNDLE: An Indian porter (left) hands over a sack of garlic to a Pakistani porter at Wagah.

ISLAMABAD: It is the other daily parade on the India-Pakistan border, more weighed down shuffle than war-like goose-step, and while it is no less choreographed than the border-closing circus every evening, this one is not performed for an audience.

Every day, Pakistani porters wearing orange tunics, and Indian porters in blue ones unload trucks on their respective sides and haul the crates and gunny bags to the gates, carrying them on their heads and backs. There, they pass them into the outstretched hands of porters waiting on the other side of the gate, who then carry off the load to the trucks waiting on their side.

The exercise is so orderly and colourful that it gives the unmistakable feel of a grand musical extravaganza, except that there is no music, the porters are not actors, and the tonnes of back-breaking cargo they have to haul back and forth is for real.

But in a few weeks this human trundle will be a thing of the past. From October 1, Pakistani and Indian trucks will be able to drive through the border gates up to the customs point on the other side.

This was decided at talks on Monday between the two countries. A seven-member Indian team led by S. K. Swamy, Director, Border Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, and a Pakistani delegation led by Ali Salman Abbasi, Customs Collector, Lahore, represented the two sides at the talks held at Wagah.

“It will make loading and unloading easier, and more efficient,” an Indian official associated with the talks said. Porters need not be concerned that their livelihoods are endangered, as the trucks will still need to be loaded and unloaded, but without the backbreaking trudge to the gates and back.

According to a joint statement, a hotline between the two customs houses on either side will ensure that difficulties can be smoothed out quickly.

The two sides also agreed that the drivers taking the trucks through the gates will not need to show passports and visas or international driving licences, but will drive through on a computerised single-entry permit that they will get from the authorities on their side of the gate. Initially, only up to 10-wheeler size trucks will be permitted to cross the border between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m.

India and Pakistan have also agreed to open a designated cargo gate soon, and when that happens, said officials, the time and size restrictions will go.

At present, Pakistan allows India to send in meat, livestock, tomatoes, garlic, onions and potatoes duty-free through the gates. This was a measure introduced in 2005 to help curb soaring prices of these food items in Pakistan. In turn, Pakistan sends salt to India.

It is also a transit point for goods from Afghanistan to India, even though India is not allowed to use this route to send goods to Afghanistan.

With Pakistan now readying to export cement to India, traders are hoping that Pakistan will also allow this commodity to be transported by road through the Wagah-Atari gates.

Pakistani rail freight rates for transporting cement are high. It costs as much as $8 to transport a tonne of cement from Lahore to the border, a distance of 32 km.

The alternative is to send it by sea through Karachi and Bombay but Lahore-based traders looking at the north Indian market believe it would be much easier if their government allowed cement exports by road.

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