First ever containership from Kolkata Port to Agartala was sent through which one of the following Ports of Bangladesh in July 2020 ?

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Correct — D, Chattogram (Chittagong) Port. On 16 July 2020 India flagged off (in a virtual ceremony) the first trial container shipment from Netaji Subhash Dock, Kolkata (Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port) bound for Agartala in Tripura, routed through Chattogram Port in Bangladesh. Four containers — carrying TMT steel bars and pulses — sailed to Chattogram and were then carried by road on Bangladeshi trucks to Agartala, arriving around 23-24 July 2020. The transit was made possible by the Agreement on the Use of Chattogram and Mongla Ports (ACMP) for movement of Indian goods through Bangladesh, which lets India reach the landlocked North-East cheaply instead of taking the long detour through the narrow Siliguri 'Chicken's Neck' corridor.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Benapole is a land port on the India-Bangladesh border (opposite Petrapole in West Bengal) that handles road-based cross-border trade — it is not a seaport, so a container ship could not be routed 'through' it.  (b) Not a Bangladeshi seaport used for this transit; the ACMP corridor works through Bangladesh's main seaports, Chattogram and Mongla, so this is a distractor.  (c) Payra (in Patuakhali) is Bangladesh's newest, third seaport, but the July 2020 first trial shipment was routed through Chattogram, not Payra.

Concept: Because India's North-Eastern states are almost cut off from the mainland by the thin Siliguri Corridor, India has negotiated transit rights through Bangladesh. The Agreement on the Use of Chattogram and Mongla Ports (ACMP) allows Indian cargo to be shipped to these Bangladeshi seaports and then trucked to the North-East, dramatically shortening the route.

State PCS 2020 Q71 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2020 Q71 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer