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‘Wagah route vital for trade’

Photo: PTI

A patient hearing: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh interacting with Pakistani nationals at Attari on Friday.

ATTARI BORDER: The Union Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, on Friday said that though the Wagah-Attari land route accounted for just two per cent of the 1.7 billion dollars India-Pakistan trade at present, its development was vital for the future of trilateral trade among India and central Asian countries through Pakistan.

Talking to reporters after a spot review of the progress of construction of an “Integrated Check Post” (ICP) here, Mr. Ramesh said that having sanctioned Rs.90 crore for augmenting the facilities along this land route, his Ministry would pursue the Rs.200-crore proposal to put in place a similar ICP at Attari railway station, which handles around eight per cent of the present trade between India and Pakistan.

The Minister said that since Pakistan was also proceeding well in installing similar facilities on its side of the border, “we could be looking at the development of the Lahore-Amritsar economic prosperity sphere”.

He pointed out that since September last year India had imported 50,000 tonnes of cement from Pakistan, while the export of cotton was picking up. Similar activity could increase if the facilities along the land route were improved, he added, citing reports that projected Indo-Pak trade to grow to more than 10 billion US dollars within the next four years.

Mr. Ramesh said that through RITES, a government undertaking, the Commerce Ministry had committed an investment of Rs.853 crore to set up 13 ICPs, of which seven were along the border with Bangladesh, four with Nepal and one each with Myanmar and Pakistan. On completion, these ICPs would have state-of-the-art infrastructure to handle requirements of the Customs, Immigration, cargo handling, banking, quarantine and electronic data interchange.

RITES’ manager of transportation and economics Sarvesh Bhatnagar explained that the ICP along the land route would include construction of a separate gate for trade, provide parking space for 400 trucks against the existing one for only 10 vehicles, vice-versa shifting of cargo, and accommodate nearly 2,000 people against the present facility that can handle just 400. The officials briefed the Minister on lack of facilities for security check of incoming trucks, a major source of complaints.

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‘Wagah route vital for trade’

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