ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions has decided on Tuesday to seek briefing from the Ministry of Interior with regards to measures being taken to remove the hardships faced by the transporters at the Torkham border as in the post-Covid-19 situation, truck are lining up at the border.

A meeting of the committee presided over by Senator Taj Muhammad Afridi was informed that there was considerable decline in the country's exports from the Torkham border in the recent months, especially after the coronavirus and implementation of the SOPs.

Exports of Pakistani goods from the Torkham border has declined to $1 billion at present from $2.5 billion. Adnan Ahmed, assistant of Customs Peshawar, explained to the committee about the reason behind lining up of trucks at the Torkham border.

The meeting was informed that requirement of fulfilling COVID-19 SOPs, disinfecting every vehicles, change of driver, and personal protective equipments (PPEs) have been a time consuming exercise, and leading to a delay in clearance of vehicles.

All this, takes too much time for clearing a truck, and before COVID-19 scanning was not required for exports, and after COVID-19 every vehicle was being scanned, he added.

However, he further stated that with the installation of another scanner by the National Logistic Cell (NLC), now there are two scanners with each for imports and exports scanning, and with the installation of separate scanner for exports, clearance of vehicles is expected to be expedited from the Torkham border, added the Custom official.

The meeting was informed that backlog of vehicles at the Torkham border had been creating problems for the transporters, and the delay in clearance was hurting exports of Pakistani goods as well. The committee wanted the concerned departments to take practical steps to establish a legal terminal at the Pakistan, Afghanistan roads to do away with the practice of extortion of money by the illegal terminal.

The chairman of the committee said that transporters had been protesting against the practice of extortion of money at illegal terminal set up at Pak-Afghan road as no department or individual could be allowed to do so. The committee directed the police to resolve this matter on illegal terminal on a priority basis.

The committee expressed displeasure of delay in return of internally displaced persons to their homes and financial support for their rehabilitation. Officials of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority informed the committee about the damages as well as compensation and repatriation of the IDPs of some tribal areas.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020