Agartala July 22: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Srimantpur India-Bangladesh Integrated Check Post (ICP) and Sonamura border today after coming on a two-day visit to Tripura. On this day, he visited various facilities at ICP and the jetty constructed on the river Gomati on the Indo-Bangladesh border.
During the visit of the Integrated Check Post on this day, Minister Sitharaman exchanged views with the officials concerned on various issues related to ICP. In the past few years, significant passenger traffic and import-export trade between the two countries have been doing well through this customs port. Customs and Land Port Authority of India are working together to facilitate passenger movement and trade at Srimantpur ICP.
During his visit today, Sitharaman also released a booklet titled Connecting Borders, which includes all functional land customs centers in the Northeast. The Union Finance Minister was accorded a guard of honor by 133 BSF on his arrival at Srimantpur.
Besides, the finance minister also visited the zero point on the India-Bangladesh border, where the border guards of Bangladesh greeted him with a bouquet of flowers. Incidentally, Srimantapur border was inaugurated by Nirmala Sitharaman on 6 January 2016 when she was the Minister of State for Commerce.
Yogendra Garg, Chief Commissioner of Central GST and Central Excise, North Eastern Region, said that during the Finance Minister’s visit to this ICP, he advised the officials concerned on how to improve the facilities at the station. Also expressed satisfaction with the performance in terms of passenger and trade flow.
On this day, Yogendra Garg also said that the Union Finance Minister is witnessing the trend of increase in passenger traffic and goods export-import in ICP. This ICP received 26,405 passenger arrivals from Bangladesh in FY 2022-23 while the number of outbound passengers was recorded at 25,582. In 2022-23, the import-export trade also recorded an increasing trend with ICP evident from the duty collection of Rs.17.85 crore.
