Sikkim standoff casts shadow on cross-border trade passes
India’s standoff with China at Doklam is casting a shadow on the cross-border trade through the Shipki La pass in the tribal Kinnaur district.
Trade between the two countries opened in 1994 after India and China signed a bilateral protocol. It is carried through the 18,599-foot-high Shipki La pass connecting India and China. Himachal’s Kinnaur and Lahual Spiti districts share 280 kms of border with China.
The inordinate delay in a green signal to the annual cross-border trade that usually starts in July has left local traders worried. “This year, the traders have not been given the security clearances so far,” complained Shar Chander Negi, general manager of General Industries Corporation, Kinnaur. This year, a total of 82 traders, most of them local villagers, had applied for passes.
Traders are sent to security agencies through the office of the tehsildar at Pooh in Kinnaur. Till 2012, the trade passes were issued by the Himachal police’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) but now central agencies have taken over.
Indians trade in items such as agricultural implements, blankets, copper products, clothes, textiles, cycles, coffee, tea, barley, rice, flour, dry fruit, dry and fresh vegetables, vegetable oil, jaggery and tobacco. They return with items like jackets.
Earlier, they also used to bring livestock from China, but it was banned in 1992 due to lack of quarantine facilities.
Traders have been repeatedly urging the Centre to create more facilities at the Namgya trading point in India.
“Trade at the Shipkila officially starts in mid July but it picks up pace in August after the locals are free from apple harvest, but so far the government has not issued any security passes to us,” says Hishey Negi, president of Kinnaur Indo-China Trade Association. The highest value of trade in the region was recorded in 2105 when the total revenue exceeded ₹9.38 crore.