India-Afghan trade resumes, gets tepid response

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 16

Even as Pakistan allowed Afghanistan to use its transit route for trade with India through the Attari-Wagah border, not a single consignment arrived on the first day of trade resumption on Wednesday. Indian traders generally import dry fruit, mulethi (liquorice) and exotic herbal items from Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) and the Amritsar Customs Department have all arrangements in place at the Integrated Checkpost (ICP), Attari.

A communication was received here from Islamabad that under the Pakistan-Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) agreement, the Afghan traders would have access to eastern Wagah border to reach Attari from July 15 onwards, where Afghan goods would be offloaded.

LPAI official Sukhdev Singh said on day one of resumption of India-Afghanistan trade, no Afghani trucks from Wagah side arrived. He said in the normal course earlier, 20-25 trucks used to come daily from Afghanistan.

“On our part, all requisite arrangements in the wake of Covid have been put in place. The health teams would screen the drivers at the zero line before allowing the trucks. Our employees are also equipped with safety gear and only limited number of porters would be called up,” he said.

Amritsar Customs’ Commissioner Dipak Kumar Gupta said search teams, including sniffer dog squads, had been deputed at Attari.

The Central Government had suspended cross-border trade through the Attari ICP, which facilitates India’s trade with Pakistan and Afghanistan, on March 13 as a precautionary measure amid the Covid pandemic.

It is learnt that on special request of the Afghanistan Government, the Pakistan Government agreed for the Afghanistan-India transit trade. The agreement, however, does not permit Indian goods to be loaded onto trucks for transit back to Afghanistan.