An Indian truck carrying tomatoes rolled over into Pakistan on Monday for the first time since Partition, marking a watershed in Indo-Pak bilateral trade. The beginning of truck movement across the international border symbolically breaches the 60-year-old practice of using porters for trade on either side of the border and brightens up the possibilities of commercial ties with Central Asia.
At a ceremony here, Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal formally flagged off the truck to Pakistan, while assuring to speed up infrastructure projects like an integrated check post, four-laning of the Verka-Wagah road, a passport and visa facility and extension of the dedicated freight corridor to Amritsar to boost international trade.
The first consignment containing 600 boxes of tomatoes worth Rs 2 lakh were sent by export firm from the area called Narain Eximp Corporation.
Despite the euphoria, Pakistan could not reciprocate India?s initiative due to some unfulfilled modalities and is expected to send across six-truck loads of dry fruits on Wednesday.
Badal said the move had wiped off Punjab?s scourge of being a landlocked state and hoped it would bring development to border villages that have suffered hugely due to cross-border hostilities.
He said the new route would create new possibilities of trade through Attari and put an end to circuitous shipments from the region that needed to be routed through Mumbai to Karachi.
?Farmers in the region would also benefit as an upcoming cold storage facility for perishable goods at Amritsar would facilitate the export of vegetables and other agriculture goods,? Badal said.
The two countries stand to benefit from the move and economies of scale would decide the magnitude of trade in future.
Job fears allayed
Over 1,650 porters from India and Pakistan engaged in transaction of goods across the international border protested against the move that they fear might put them out of business. Even though Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal assured that no jobs would be lost, angry porters caused damage to a few trucks supposed to carry livestock to Pakistan. Customs assistant commissioner VD Choudhary said, around seven trucks at the border were damaged.