After driving into revised traffic rules in Assam, trucks from Bhutan carrying boulders and stone chips to Bangladesh via the northeast have now run into an NGO in Meghalaya.
The Anti-Corruption and Human Development Organisation has urged the authorities in Meghalaya to ban the plying of the “overloaded” trucks from Bhutan as their movement has “damaged the already-damaged roads in the State”.
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Bhutan exports stones to Bangladesh using the land route through Assam and Meghalaya as per the South Asian Free Trade Area agreement among SAARC countries allowing a third country to be used as transit. SAARC expands to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and its members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Each Bhutan truck is supposed to carry 18 tonnes of load from Gelephu on the India-Bhutan border to Dalu on Meghalaya-Bangladesh border covering 321 km. But Bhutanese traders have admitted the trucks carry “a bit more” to offset the “extra expenditure” on transportation.
The Meghalaya organisation based at Chibinang in West Garo Hills district, said that convoys of overloaded Bhutan trucks have been causing more damage to an arterial road that was already in a dilapidated state.
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Ishraful Hoque, the organisation’s president said the road to the check point on the border with Bangladesh had been repaired some time ago, but have begun peeling off because of the trucks that are allegedly driven at a high speed.