The Chittagong Custom House is made to do with around half of the authorised posts being vacant, which is impacting monitoring of import-export goods while also hampering the supervision of tax evasion, claimed media reports.
Regular supervision of import-export goods has been hampered by the manpower shortage, reportedly claimed Commissioner of Chittagong Custom, Fakhrul Alam, speaking to the media while adding that it takes 2 days extra for Chittagong Customs to complete a job that could have been done within a day with adequate manpower and going on to underline that almost all the officers have to perform additional duties, consequent to which sometimes they cannot scrutinise invoice documents or properly test products.
As per reports, although 1,248 posts were approved for the organisation way back in 1982, only 651 people are currently working at Chittagong Customs even as its revenue collection has increased 42 times in the last four decades and other activities have reportedly increased several times by now.
As a result of this, both importers and exporters have had to suffer owing to delays in shipments, claimed reports.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
