Hundreds of trucks laden with around four lakh tonnes of wheat meant for export to Bangladesh have been stuck at land ports in Bengal for at least three weeks as customs authorities are allegedly refusing their onward journey.
The exporters are worried that delay in the transportation of the wheat will cause them losses of crores of rupees as the grain will start rotting because of rains.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) had issued a notification dated May 13, banning the export of wheat with immediate effect. The ban was imposed in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which affected the global wheat supply.
The DGFT, however, said the export shipments, for which irrevocable letters of credit (LoC) had been issued before May 13, would be allowed.
“At Mahadipur land port (in Malda district), around one lakh metric tonnes of wheat are stuck. These are consignments, for which we had received payments from Bangladeshi importers before May 13. There is no reason why trucks carrying these consignments shouldn’t be allowed to enter Bangladesh,” said Uzzal Saha, the general secretary of the West Bengal Exporters’ Coordination Committee (WBECC).
An exporter who didn’t wish to be named said the DGFT had specifically said there was no restriction on the wheat consignments which had been cleared for export before May 13. “But the customs authorities at the land ports on the Bangladesh border are insisting on an order from the DGFT that the wheat consignments, for which all formalities had been completed before the ban, could be exported,” said the exported.
Contacted by The Telegraph, a customs official said: “We need a directive from the DGFT. Otherwise, we cannot allow trucks to enter Bangladesh.”
The WBECC had sent a letter to Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on May 28, urging him to ask the DGFT to issue an order so that the wheat-laden trucks could enter Bangladesh.
The situation is same at Changrabandha, another land port in Cooch Behar district.
Bimal Kumar Ghosh, president of the Changrabandha Exporters’ Association, said around 1,500 trucks laden with wheat had been stuck on the border since May 12.
“Our payments were cleared through SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, an international bank payment system) and letters of credit also issued by Bangladeshi banks. The central government should consider the situation. We have no problem if documents of every truck are checked to confirm that the export formalities were finalised before the restriction,” said Ghosh.
He pointed out it had already started raining in the region and if wheat bags continued to remain on the trucks, the grain would rot. “Because of frequent heavy showers, water is seeping into the bags damaging the wheat. If the monsoon sets in, a major portion of the consignment will be wasted, which means huge losses for us.”
An exporter based in Malda said around four lakh tonnes of wheat were stranded on the Bangladesh border in Bengal since May 13. “Bangladesh is one of our major buyers as importers save around 30 per cent by buying Indian wheat instead of procuring it from other countries. In the last fiscal, around four million tonnes of the grain were exported to Bangladesh,” he said.
