Pact ready for seamless transit of vehicles in four SAARC nations

NEW DELHI: India and three other nations of the SAARC grouping - Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan - are expected to ink a pact next month that will provide seamless transit of passenger and cargo vehicles among them, making cross-border trade cost efficient.

"Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari will visit Bhutan on June 15 to sign the Motor Vehicle Agreement with the transport ministers of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal," said an official source.

The pact, called the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicle agreement, will regulate passenger and cargo vehicular traffic among these four of the eight SAARC members, the source said.

The government had said earlier that the agreement had provisions to enable other SAARC nations (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka) to join this framework.

Once implemented, the agreement will reduce the costly and time-consuming unloading and loading of people and goods at border crossing points, making cross-border trade more efficient.

"To reduce cost and time consuming process and make cross border trade and transport more efficient and to help transform transport corridors linking the four countries into economic corridors and enhance people to people contact, the text of a motor vehicle agreement among BBIN as a sub-regional arrangement has been finalised in a meeting of Transport Secretaries of these countries," the government had earlier said.

In February, senior officials from the four nations had met at Raichak near Kolkata to finalise the pact and draw up plans for its speedy implementation.

The agreement will allow passenger, personal and cargo vehicles to travel along designated key routes in the four SAARC countries without the need for trans-shipment of goods and passengers at the border crossings.

The sub-regional pact will be a parallel initiative to the proposed SAARC transport agreement for which efforts to find an early resolution would continue.

Building on the progress made in negotiating and finalising the SAARC Motor Vehicles Agreement, this pact will facilitate the transit of all types of vehicles between the contracting parties as is prevalent in other common markets like the European Union.

Earlier the four-country representatives meeting was chaired by Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chhibber.