Tripura fruit growers happy over resumption of border trade

Fruit sellers and other small time traders in Tripura are excited at the prospect of resumption of border trade between India and Bangladesh by next December.
Trade between the two neighbours thrived till about 15 years ago when there was no barbed wire fencing along the border. Fruit sellers, specially pineapple traders, earned good prices for their produce in the 'haats' (border markets) across the border.
"The Bangladesh government has agreed to India's proposal to set up two border haats along the Tripura border. The Union Commerce Ministry has communicated this to the Tripura government," Tripura's Commerce Minister Jitendra Chaudhury said.

He said that initially two such markets would open - one at Kasba in Sipahijala and the other at Srinagar in south Tripura district - by December, this year.
The Tripura government wanted to set up seven such border haats along the Tripura border. In the first phase, four haats were agreed upon by the two countries, Chaudhury said.
Mridul Das, a pineapple grower at Kamalasagar village of Sipahijala district, is ecstatic at the prospect of once again becoming able to sell the fruits to consumers across the border and earn good money.

"When there was no barbed wire fencing 15 years ago and only a few pillars stood starkly on the border, I went to Kasba market in Brahmanbaria district in Bangladesh, just a km from my home, to sell the products," he told a team of visiting journalists.

"The Indian market is about three km away, but the fruits sold there did not fetch good price. We got good price only in Bangladesh," he said.
Traders like him lamented that the erection of barbed wire fencing along the 856-km border increased security, but at the same time it discouraged age-old pineapple cultivation in the state.