Soon, SAARC nations would be just a long drive away

“The Regional Motor Vehicle Agreement has been discussed at several SAARC meetings and with India chairing the 14th SAARC Summit, we decided to take the initiative by preparing a draft agreement as requested by the Ministry of External Affairs. The draft recommends ways to do away with physical and non-physical barriers in the way of regional transport movement, allowing people to travel freely across the region and facilitate smooth goods movement,” said a senior official, Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways.

“What we are looking at is a framework that allows people to drive down in their vehicles to neighbouring countries for short visits or engage a driver with a due permit to drive them down. We are also recommending ways to allow truck movement across the borders with minimum cases of unloading and then re-loading into another vehicle, as is the norm at border points. At present, there is very limited point-to-point transport service,” the official said.

The draft agreement is modelled on the system in the European Union, which opts for a common transport policy in the initial years, removing obstacles at the borders between member states. The objective, said officials, is to ensure better access among states and boost trade. Each nation would identify certain border entry points for movement of passengers and goods and sort out protocol, security and customs-related issues as per the agreement that will be put before the transport ministries of all member nations by month-end. The three-day meeting will include discussion at Joint Secretary, Secretary and ministerial levels.

The issues of ensuring connectivity to Afghanistan will also figure prominently in the meet. The corridors identified under the multi-modal transport study do not include transport corridors to the new member state Afghanistan.