Agartala, May 09, 2023: After a long gap of three years, one of the two ‘Border Haats’ in Tripura along Indo-Bangla international border at Srinagar in Sabroom sub-division under South Tripura district and Chhagalnaiya in Feni district of Bangladesh resumed business and trade on Tuesday.

The senior officials of South Tripura district and Feni district in Bangladesh were present. Additional District Magistrate and Collector Dhanbabu Reang and Bangladesh’s Feni District’s Additional District Magistrate Abhishek Das jointly stated that this resumption of ‘Border Haat’ would open on each Tuesday and altogether 27 vendors including women from each side would open their stalls in the border market.

“As many as 1200 people each from India and Bangladesh would be allowed to enter into the resumed ‘Border Haat’ after verifying their government identity cards as per the decision of the officials of the two countries’ districts authorities,” Reang said.

Mohammad Tushar, a vendor from Bangladesh who opened his stall in the ‘Border Haat’ expressed his happiness and said this market would boost their livelihood and avert smuggling of local produce on both sides of the international border.

Tripura’s Industries and Commerce department’s senior official said that the district officials of the Feni and South Tripura decided to resume the business and trade of the Chhagalnaiya (Bangladesh)-Srinagar (Tripura) ‘Border Haat’ from Tuesday after a meeting held recently.

The meeting also focused on restarting another ‘Border Haat’ at Kashba (Bangladesh)-Kamalasagar (Tripura) in Sepahijala district soon.

The two ‘Border Haats’ of Tripura have remained closed since March 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, causing immense loss to the people living in the bordering villages.

Tripura government had pressed the central government to take up the matter with the Bangladesh government in resumption of closed Border Haats.

It is worthy to mention here that the former union Industries and Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Bangladesh minister Tofail Ahmed inaugurated the Srinagar and Chhagalnaiya Border Haat, which is the first border market in entire North Eastern region of India on January 13, 2015. At that point of time, Sitharaman claimed that Tripura will also have three more border haats at Kamalasagar (which was later opened), Kamalpur and Sonamura.