India and Bangladesh have resumed trading at one of the two ‘Border Haats’ (markets) in Tripura after a closure of three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Purba Madhugram-Srinagar ‘Border Haat’, located along the India-Bangladesh border, has opened for business on Tuesdays with the participation of vendors and buyers from both countries. District officials of South Tripura and Bangladesh’s Feni districts were present on the opening day to oversee the proceedings.
According to officials, the ‘Border Haat’ would operate on each Tuesday, and 27 vendors from each side, including women, would participate in the market. The market will allow 1,200 people from India and Bangladesh each to enter, after verifying their government identity cards.
The reopening of the Purba Madhugram-Srinagar ‘Border Haat’ is expected to help vendors maintain their livelihoods and prevent smuggling of local produce on either side. One of the Bangladeshi vendors, Mohammad Tushar, expressed his gratitude towards the authorities, saying that the market has boosted his morale.
The reopening of the market comes after a recent meeting between district officials of Feni and South Tripura. The officials decided to resume the business of the Purba Madhugram-Srinagar ‘Border Haats’ from Tuesday. “Efforts were on to restart another Border Haat, Kasba-Kamlasagar, in the Sepahijala district,” a top official of the Tripura Industries and Commerce Department told IANS.
The reopening of the ‘Border Haats’ is a significant boost for people living in bordering villages. The four ‘Border Haats’ in Tripura and Meghalaya had remained closed since March 2020, causing immense loss to the people living in the area. Both the Tripura and Meghalaya governments had been pressing the Centre to take up the matter with the Bangladesh government to resume the ‘Border Haats.’
The two ‘Border Haats’ in Meghalaya, located at Balat and Kalaichar, were reopened last year and are functional once a week now. The fifth ‘Border Haat’ between India and Bangladesh was inaugurated on May 6 along Bholaganj under the Companiganj upazila of Sylhet district and East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya. The opening of the new ‘Border Haat’ in Meghalaya was welcomed by people on both sides of the border with great enthusiasm.
Jaipur-based think-tank CUTS International had recommended to the Indian government to resume the ‘Border Haats’ with necessary precautions against COVID-19. The border markets, spread in around 5,625 sq. meter area of the two countries’ territories or “no-man’s land,” operate once a week on a fixed day.
Officials have approved ten more “Border Haats” along the India-Bangladesh border at Tripura and Meghalaya. Out of them, six are in Meghalaya, and four are in Tripura. The Indian and Bangladeshi governments are keen to reopen more “Border Haats” in the four northeastern states – Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, and Mizoram – which share a 1,880-km border with Bangladesh.
The ‘Border Haats’ may be small in terms of the volume of trade, but they contribute immensely to the bonding of people on both sides of the border, knowledge sharing, and deepening people-to-people connectivity, which is an essential building block in cementing ties between the two neighboring countries, said CUTS International Executive Director Bipul Chatterjee.
