Benapole Customs House has failed to achieve its revenue collection target set for the first five months of 2019-20. In the period, the customs house collected around Tk 1, 252 crore, 59 lakh down from the target of Tk 2427 crore 42 lakh. Tk 1,175 crore revenue less collected in this five months.
Industry insiders blamed the fall on the unwillingness of businesses to use the customs house for imports to avoid strict customs rules.
Mamun Babu, an importer, said that most of the industrial factories and garment industries in the country, about 80 percent of the raw material imported through Benapole port.
Benapole custom house is the highest revenue collector from all land ports in the country. Because of this, many importers are not importing through this port. Moreover, Commercial goods have fallen by half through the Benapole Land port.
The National Board of Revenue earlier set a target of Tk 5,500 crore in 2019-20 for Benapole, said Uttam Chakma assistant commissioner of the customs house.
Mofiju Rahman Sazon , president , Benapole C & F agents association said that Benapole land port now is in on 90 acres of land. which has capacity of 59,000 metric tons, currently about 1.5 lakh ton of goods handling in this port. Besides, the communication system is better than any other port in the country. The distance from Benapole to Kolkata is only 84 km. About 80% of the country's goods are imported through this port.
Benapole Custom House Commissioner Mohammad Belal Hossain Chowdhury said transparency and accountability to clearance goods, delivery and shipment has increased.
Some importers have reduced imports through the port as fail to take illegal opportunity. In particular, there has been a slight decrease in revenue due to fall imports of commercial goods.