Bengal: Uneasy India-Bangladesh ties hit trade, medical tourism

There are around 50 guest houses in the area that primarily cater to Bangladeshi patients and their attendants.

Once teeming with guests, these houses now wear a deserted look as the flow of patients from the neighbouring country has drastically dropped since visa services for Bangladesh nationals have not yet been normalised.

A couple of Indian visa centres were vandalised and the Indian cultural centre was gutted during the widespread violence that broke out across Bangladesh after Hasina was forced to flee the country on August 5. This led New Delhi to promptly close all its visa application centres in the country.

Though the centres at Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong, Sylhet and Khulna resumed services after a semblance of normalcy returned to the country by mid-August, visas are currently issued only in emergency cases.

Pranay Verma, the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, told Bangladeshi media recently that visas are issued currently only for medical and emergency reasons and for those travelling to India need to apply for a third-country visa.

It will take some time for regular visa processing services to resume, he further added.

A shortage of manpower due to security concerns is cited as a reason for the disruption, an argument Dhaka has refused to buy.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, one of the advisers in Bangladesh’s interim government, observed recently: "There is no justification for restricting visas for Bangladeshis. I don’t think the situation in Bangladesh warrants such a restriction.

"The US, Japan or the European Union have not imposed any restriction.”

The visa limitations have severely impacted businesses in West Bengal.

“Earlier, I used to host around 10 guests from Bangladesh every day. The number has now drastically fallen. I got only one visitor last month,” claimed Joydev Mistri, who runs guest houses and currency exchange services at Thakurpukur.

Businesses around Marquise Street, Kyd Street, Esplanade and Newmarket areas, often called Kolkata’s mini-Bangladesh, are also experiencing a similar dry spell.

“There is no ready data available of the business loss. But you can say, businesses in our areas have dropped by around 90 per cent as we are completely dependent on Bangladeshi customers,” said Md Mehtab Alam, a tour operator at Marquise Street.

With over 21 lakh visitors, Bangladesh topped the list of countries from where the largest number of foreign tourists arrived in India last year, according to Bureau of Immigration’s data. Of them, around 4.5 lakh Bangladeshis visited for medical treatment, with West Bengal having the lion share of around 2.7 lakh patients.

Before the unrest, the SGCCRI used to manage 100-150 patients from Bangladesh every month, but now the number has dropped to around 10, according to a hospital authority.

Many patients have been cancelling their appointments because they are not getting visas, the official said.

Credit rating agency CareEdge Ratings had estimated that “the FTA (toreign tourist arrival) for medical treatment from Bangladesh to India significantly fell by about 80 per cent during August 2024 and gradually improved thereafter and for the entire year (i.e., 2024) the drop in FTA from the country is expected to be about 10-15 per cent as compared to 2023.”

“In reality, the situation has not improved much even after August,” Alam said, pointing out that several Bangladeshi airlines have been forced to reduce the number of flights to India due to lack of passengers.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines, US-Bangla and NovoAir operate flights to India. The first two have curtailed their services while NovoAir has suspended India operation due to lack of passengers.

At the least, 70 per cent seats are filled in the flights which are operating now, Boshra Islam, general manager (public relations) of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, was quoted last week as saying by Bangladeshi media.