Move the Customs House to Mongla

Mongla seaport was established way back in 1950. It is an abject failure on the part of the administration that during these 67 years, Mongla has not been developed as a full-fledged seaport. During present times the port has been reactivated and there is a significant volume of exports and imports, which is all very well for business. After all, a single seaport can hardly meet the requirements of a country with a population of 160 million. With Mongla now in operation, pressure has been taken off the Chittagong seaport and the people of the southwest have benefitted economically. It is both time-consuming and costly to transfer goods from Chittagong to this region.

According to a Prothom Alo report, The Mongla port Customs House is located 58 kilometres away from the port, in Khalishpur of Khulna town. All official paper work, including assessing duty and so on, takes place there. The customs unit which exists at the port itself is restricted to assessing the standard of the goods and releasing the containers. As a result, the business persons using the port have to face all sorts of difficulties. They sometimes have to travel back and forth from Khalishpur several times to get their goods released. And it is ultimately the consumers that bear the brunt.
It is high time that a full-fledged Customs House be set up at Mongla port itself. At a meeting of the port advisory committee in 2011, shipping minister Shahjahan Khan had said that the Customs House would be set up there. But the minister has failed, in these six years, to set up the infrastructure for a Customs House in Mongla.
The shipping ministry spends billions of taka every year on sending its officials abroad and on other flimsy tasks. Yet it cannot spend anything on Mongla port which sees imports and exports amounting to billions of taka every year. In the last fiscal, Mongla port raked in profits of Tk 720 million. At least some of this could have been used for the development of the port.
The excuse put forward by the customs authorities for not shifting the Customs House from Khalishpur to Mongla, is unacceptable. In this day and age of advanced technology, there is no need for massive infrastructure to run a Customs House. The main requirement is sincere intentions. The minister did not keep his commitment last year. There can be no further delay. The Customs House should be shifted to Mongla immediately.