Petrapole-Benapole border accounts for about 70% of Indo-Bangla trade (File photo)
NEW DELHI: West Bengal is proving to be a major obstacle to India’s neighbourhood policy.
A decision by the Mamata Banerjee government to stop all goods from Bangladesh through the Petrapole-Benapole border since March has resulted in serious damage to bilateral trade and it came to a head on Wednesday with Bangladesh refusing to allow Indian trucks to cross the border.
As a result of Bengal’s actions, bilateral trade with Bangladesh dropped to $424 million in April-May, as compared to nearly $2 billion for the same period in 2019, with serious disruption to imports from Bangladesh. In the first five calenda