the main commercial city in the northern part of West Bengal. Located strategically at state and international borders, Siliguri has become an important regional hub, with good connectivity to Kalimpong in Darjeeling district and Sikkim by road, as well as with Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri by rail; it also includes the only airport in the region, in Bagdora. There is a north-south route that intersects with the Siliguri Corridor running between the Kakarbhitta (Nepal)/Panitanki (India) and the Fulbari (India)/Banglabandha (Bangladesh) border posts. All three countries therefore have access to Siliguri.

The road from Fulibari to Panitanki is in a fair condition, but in need of an upgrade and widening. In Nepal the route links to the recently renovated Nepal East-West highway. The Siliguri Corridor handles more than 40m tonnes of traffic per year most of it east bound between mainland India and the North-East States. Nepal/Bhutan – India/Bangladesh traffic passing through the corridor is close to 1m tonnes per year. There is therefore some potential for the trade traffic flows between the three countries to interact with and benefit from the larger flows passing through the corridor.

The Kakarbhitta/Panitanki border station pair between Nepal and India handles approximately 100 to 150 trucks per day. In 2012 Kakarbhitta handled 3 percent of Nepal’s imports and 11 percent of exports. Exports are dominated by construction materials and processed foodstuffs while imports are dominated by machinery and petroleum products (Table 6). In Nepal there is a road based inland container depot at Kakarbhitta. The border stations on both sides are open seven days a week, except one Saturday per month. India is building a new four-lane bridge across the river that forms the boundary line to relieve the current, overcrowded, two-lane bridge. However, generally, there are no obvious infrastructure constraints to trade between the two countries through this point.

**Table 6: Volumes through Kakarbhitta/Panitanki Land Border Crossing Point**

||**Ex**<br>|**port**<br>|**Im**<br>|**port**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**%**|**Tonnes**|**%**|**Tonnes**|
|Agriculture|10.1|9844|6.8|52076|
|Mining & Minerals|4.3|4214|3.5|26551|
|Construction|26.3|25613|4.8|36983|
|Machinery|0.0|0.0|42.5|325430|
|Petroleum product|0.0|0.0|38.6|295291|
|Goods still required processing|8.7|8464|0.5|4136|
|Processed food|49.8|48545|2.6|20171|
|Clothing|0.1|139|0.1|605|
|White goods|0.0|0.0|0.0|0|
|Fast moving consumer goods|0.7|660|0.5|3628|
|TOTAL|100|97477|100|764872|
|_Source: Mott MacDonald (2013)_|||||

At Banglabandha-Fulbari is the land border crossing point on the shortest route between Bangladesh and Nepal. There is a modern facility on the Indian side, with two "warehouses" (one of which is refrigerated), and a large car park (used for trans-loading purposes) among other infrastructure. The Bangladesh side is far less elaborate in terms of infrastructure, but offers sufficient space to process existing traffic and any growth in the medium term.

There are special arrangements to allow informal interactions within the border region. As there are settlements adjacent to the border, the inhabitants are allowed to utilize a strip of land along the border, within defined hours. In India the residents as well as their livestock have to be registered with the Border Security Force in India. The arrangement is based on a realization that the border is not always clearly delineated.

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