Pinak terms 80pc visa seekers touts, brokers
Courtesy New Age 21/7/09
Staff Correspondent
Some 25,000 of the Bangladeshi travellers going to India with legal visas every year do not come back, claimed the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakrabarty, and described most of the visa seekers as ‘touts’ and ‘brokers’.
He made the allegations at a conference on ‘Bangladesh-India Economic Relations’ in Dhaka on Monday in a bid to justify the Indian High Commission’s cumbersome process of issuing visas, as shown by the extremely long queues of visa seekers.
‘Eighty per cent of the visa seekers are not genuine. Those [whom you see in the queue] are touts and brokers,’ said the Indian ‘diplomat’, adding that the visa issuing process would be much easier if the Bangladesh government ensured that touts and brokers no longer queue for submitting visa applications.
He attributed the current visa regime to
A large 50-member delegation of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, led by its vice-president Harsh C Mariwala, attended the daylong conference organised by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel.
Pinak’s far from diplomatic outburst was an attempt to rebut the complaints made by the president of the FBCCI, Annisul Huq, about
Talking about non-tariff barriers to bilateral trade, Annisul quipped that the queue of the visa seekers was usually three miles long and it should be included as one of the Guinness World Records.
‘We certainly need to ensure a significant reduction in our apparently small, non-tariff barriers that threaten bigger opportunities of growth,’ said Annis.
In response, Pinak said that the High Commission would not object to multiple visas for businesspeople. ‘I promise you that business visas will be issued as quickly as possible.’
Pinak said that
Speaking at the opening session before leaving to attend the weekly cabinet meeting, commerce minister Faruk Khan urged the business leaders of the two countries to pressure their governments to develop cooperative relations for mutual benefit.
‘We have created problems ourselves. People-to-people contact is good but when it comes with governments, especially politicians, we see problems,’ he said, expressing the hope that the present democratic atmosphere in the entire
At a seminar in
The foreign affairs minister, Dipu Moni, who spoke later as chief guest, did not make any comments on Pinak’s remarks that subsequently sparked off a lot of controversy and indignation, although she later termed his haughty attitude and antagonistic remarks a violation of diplomatic norms.
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