KHYBER: The consignments imported from and bound for Afghanistan under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement via Torkham border will be weighed at the National Logistics Cell terminal in Jamrud area to minimise traffic congestion on Torkham border and expedite trade flow with Afghanistan.

The decision was made during a meeting of the Senate standing committee on Safron, which was held in Torkham on Monday under the chairmanship of Senator Taj Mohammad Afridi.

The meeting was attended by border security and police officials, representatives of FBR, customs, FIA, NLC, PTCL, Pesco and other stakeholders.

The participants took stock of the issues and hurdles to smooth flow and speedy clearance of trade goods via Torkham with reference to backlog of thousands of stranded vehicles.

Move meant to ease traffic congestion at Torkham, expedite Pak-Afghan trade

Sources told Dawn that the meeting was informed about three major issues, which had seriously hampered free flow of trade between the two neighbouring countries, especially in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and later the lifting of certain restrictions by the government of Pakistan.

The meeting was informed that due to the slow work on a state-of-the-art customs terminal by the NLC, the parking space for loaded vehicles had reduced from around 600 to 300 only.

Sources said hundred per cent scanning condition for export vehicles introduced immediately after the outbreak of coronavirus in Feb was also identified to be a stumbling block to speedy clearance of trade goods badly affecting trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

They said the scanning machine at Torkham was obsolete and remained out of order most of the time wasting time of transporters and exporters.

Most participants believed that the scanning condition should be lifted at Torkham as it was not applied at other border crossings with Afghanistan, including Ghulam Khan, Chaman and Kharlaachi ones.

The Federal Board of Revenue suggested the scanning and weighing of the ATTA goods to be started at the Jamrud NLC terminal with immediate effect, sources said.

However, an official notification issued by the office of the additional collector customs division Khyber (Torkham) set the condition of ‘weighment’ for export consignments intended for export to Afghanistan via the Torkham border.

Sources said in the meeting, customs officials initially didn’t favour the application of ‘weighment’ condition to Pakistani export vehicles and agreed to its application to ATTA vehicles only.

They, however, insisted that scanning of export vehicles would be done at Torkham and the ATTA ones at Jamrud terminal.

Custom officials said the ATTA vehicles outnumbered the export ones and their weighment in Jamrudwould help ease traffic flow at the border crossing.

It was also initially decided that ATTA vehicles cleared at Jamrud NLC terminal would use the import entry gate at Torkham border crossing instead of the exit gate mostly used by Pakistani export vehicles to ensure smooth flow of heavy traffic and clearing of over 5,000 stranded vehicles.

The Pesco and PTCL officials promised the rectification of faulty power and Internet facilities at Torkham in the ‘due course of time’.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2020