The government is going to improve four land ports under a regional connectivity project, in a bid to increase trade between Bangladesh and India.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved the Tk 693 crore scheme; of the amount 86 percent will be financed by the World Bank.

The land ports are Sheola in Bianibazar upazila of Sylhet, Bhomra in Satkhira, Ramgarh in Khagrachhari and Benapole.

Sheola customs station was declared a land port in 2015. It has a tin-roofed house which is used as an immigration office. It is called Sutarkandi land port on the Indian side and is situated in Karimganj of Assam. 

Work for the construction of Bhomra land port started in 2013. A government development project has already been implemented there comprising an open-air warehouse and other physical infrastructure.

Bhomra land port is nearer to Kolkata than Benapole land port. A planning ministry proposal said, after the Padma bridge opens, trade activities through the Bhomra port would increase further.

The Ramgarh land port is in Khagrachhari. Here, Bangladesh shares about 400 kilometres of border with India's Tripura.

The planning ministry proposal said when Ramgarh land port is improved, trade activities with Tripura would increase and Chittagong port's efficiency would get a boost.

According to the proposal, a project financed by Asian Development Bank was now being implemented at the Benapole land port. With the World Bank finance, the land port's security system would be improved, through installation of CCTV cameras along with other measures. 

A WB team visited several ports, customs points and India-Bangladesh multimodal corridors in 2014 and 2015. Following the visits, the four land ports have been selected on the basis of the WB team's suggestion, a finance ministry official said.

Under the project, the infrastructure, warehousing facilities, transshipment and inspection system, customs control procedure and institutional and regulatory framework would be developed to facilitate smooth functioning of the ports.

The modernisation is aimed at smooth clearance of goods at the ports, improving the procedures, infrastructure and systems. Necessary facilities will have to be ensured at the ports so that women can participate in cross-border trade with ease, according to the WB.

Cross-border connectivity makes commercial sense too, as each hour's delay in border entails an additional cost of $10-15 and a single day's delay at the border raises the tariff on goods by 1 percent, the WB said. Ecnec yesterday also approved a project to set up a textile engineering college in Sylhet at a cost of Tk 110 crore. The project will end in 2020.