India has curbed access to Bangladeshi products such as readymade garments and processed food in India by limiting their entry to only two designated seaports, including Calcutta, but spared items like hilsa.
The notification to this effect was issued by the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) under the Union commerce ministry late on Saturday evening and came into effect immediately, straining the deteriorating relations of the two neighbours further.
“Import from Bangladesh shall not be allowed through any land port. It is allowed only through Nhava Sheva and Calcutta seaport,” the DGFT notification read. While Calcutta, located on India’s east coast, is the closest port to Bangladesh, Mumbai’s Nhava Sheva on the west coast is the country’s busiest port for container movement.
However, the DGFT clarified that no restrictions should apply to Bangladeshi goods transiting through India but destined for Nepal and Bhutan.
The restriction would cut off the movement of readymade garments — the most important exportable item of Bangladesh — through land borders such as Bengal’s Petrapol.
The inbound shipments for fruits; fruit-flavoured and carbonated drinks; processed food items (baked goods, snacks, chips and confectionery); cotton and cotton yarn waste; plastic and PVC-finished goods, dyes, plasticisers and granules; and wooden furniture from the neighbouring country shall not be allowed through any LCSs and ICPs in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram; and LCS Changrabandha and Fulbari in Bengal, the notification said.
It added that these restrictions would not apply to the import of fish, LPG, edible oil, and crushed stone from Bangladesh.
The balance of trade between the two countries is heavily skewed in favour of India, which exported $11.3 billion in 2023 and imported $1.89 billion. Top Bangladeshi product to enter India is readymade garments.
India-Bangladesh relations have nosedived dramatically after the departure of Sheikh Hasina and rise of Muhammad Yunus who Modi government apprehends to be inimical to India’s interest.
The DGFT notification is the second instance when India is restricting movement of Bangladeshi goods and follows a countermeasure by the neighbour.
On April 9, India withdrew the transhipment facility it had granted to Bangladesh for exporting various items to West Asia, Europe and several other countries except Nepal and Bhutan.
In an apparent retaliatory measure, yarn exports from India across land ports were stopped on April 13 and Indian shipments were subjected to rigorous inspections on entry. Further, rice exports from India were not allowed through Benapol ICPs from April 15.
India’s decision to withdraw transhipment was announced against the backdrop of the controversial statement made by Yunus, head of Bangladesh’s interim government, in China recently that India’s seven northeastern states, which share a nearly 1,600km border with Bangladesh, are landlocked and have no way to reach the ocean except through his country.
In his address at a business event in which he had also said that Bangladesh was the “only guardian” of the Indian Ocean in the region, Yunus had also invited China to send goods through Bangladesh across the world.