A file picture of trucks at Mahadipur

Cooch Behar, March 18: More than 5,000 trucks carrying rice to Bangladesh are stranded at five dry ports of Bengal after the director-general of foreign trade issued a notification on March 5 raising the minimum export price for non-Basmati rice to $650 per tonne.

Earlier, the minimum export price was $505 per tonne, said the secretary of the North Bengal Exporters’ Association, Brij Kishore.

“The customs department, because of the notification, is not allowing the trucks through as all of them are carrying bills of lading issued against the letters of credit sent by the buyers earlier. The selling price have been calculated on the basis of the earlier floor price,” Kishore said.

The association secretary added that a delegation from the association is in Delhi for talks with the minister of foreign trade, Kamal Nath.

The joint commissioner of customs in Siliguri, Debashis Sahu, said his department could not do anything till the commerce ministry sent some other instruction.

Samir Ghosh, the assistant secretary of the West Bengal Exporters’ Association, said the central decision was intended to prevent the depletion of domestic stock at a time when price of essential commodities are rising.

Every day about 200 trucks carrying commodities cross over to Bangladesh.

“Each truck carries non-Basmati rice worth nearly $11,000. Since the vehicle are not being allowed since March 5, the rice is getting spoilt,” said Joy Kumar Sen, a clearing and forwarding agent in Hili, South Dinajpur.

Sen added that 5,000 trucks meant 10,000 stranded drivers and their helpers.

“There are in a soup not knowing what to do. The exporters too are having to pay Rs 700 a day to transporters for keeping their trucks occupied,” the clearing agent said.

Long lines of trucks have been stranded at Hili, Changrabandha in Cooch Behar, Mahadipur in Malda and Gojadanga and Petrapole in North 24-Parganas.

But it is only in Hili that exporters have stopped all trade in protest against the notice, which they say, is chalking up losses up to Rs 50 lakh a day throughout the state.

The president of the Changrabandha Exporters’ Association, Uttam Karmakar, said all forms of trade with Bangladesh would be stopped from March 21 if the notification was not withdrawn.