Chattogram Custom House ICD Runs on Just 20 Percent Staff, Collects 67 Percent of First-Quarter Revenue Target

As many as 80 percent of approved posts are vacant. The newly formed Chattogram Custom House ICD is running its operations with only 20 percent of its manpower, leaving staff struggling to cope with the scale of the work. In this situation, the institution also failed to meet its revenue target for the first three months of the current fiscal year.

The approved manpower of the Chattogram Custom House is 664, against which only 131 people are currently working. In addition, 31 more employees are working on attachment from the Chattogram Custom House.

The house's Joint Commissioner Said Ahmed Rubel said manpower was also short at the officer level against approved posts. A recruitment process for 186 third- and fourth-class posts is under way, and recruitment will begin quickly once the government's final approval is received. In his words, with only 131 people working against 664 approved posts, handling the scale of operations has become a major challenge.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) appointed a commissioner for the Custom House ICD (private container depots), Chattogram, on December 30, 2025. After setting up the office, posting officers and completing other preparations, full operations began in August 2026. The office is currently operating from the BSTI's new building in Agrabad.

The new custom house collected Tk 1,481.99 crore in revenue in the first three months of fiscal 2026-27: Tk 181.38 crore in July, Tk 537.04 crore in August and Tk 762.57 crore in September. Its target, however, was Tk 2,198 crore — meaning it achieved 67.42 percent of the first-quarter target.

Joint Commissioner Said Ahmed Rubel said the custom house collects around Tk 500 crore in revenue every month. If this rate continues, revenue collection could exceed Tk 7,000 crore in the very first fiscal year.

House sources said that despite complications from the manpower shortage, progress has been made in some areas. Customs assessment of import and export goods through this custom house, which earlier took about three days, is now completed within a day.

The number of bills of entry filed for assessment of imported goods rose over the first three months: 143 in July, 4,518 in August and 5,787 in September. The number of bills of export, by contrast, fell month by month — 160,853 in July, 148,091 in August and 131,380 in September.

At Chattogram's private ICDs, export goods are stuffed into containers before shipment. Export products including readymade garments are brought from different parts of the country to the private depots by covered van and truck, and after container stuffing are sent for export to destinations including Europe and America according to ship schedules.

Assessment of these goods was previously done through the Chattogram Custom House. Since the new ICD custom house opened, the work has come under this office, which covers 22 private ICDs in Chattogram. The NBR-designated 65 types of imported goods that arrive through Chattogram port — about 25 percent of the port's imports — are delivered from these ICDs.

Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general of the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA), said the launch of the Custom House ICD has brought positive momentum to export goods assessment, which is very positive for traders. But he said adequate manpower is needed to make operations faster and risk-free. In his words, the more the manpower increases, the more customs hassles and risks will fall and the faster operations can be carried out.