Dhaka, May 19 -- For years, it took just about three hours and an 80-kilometre truck ride for PRAN's fruit-flavoured beverage Frooto, produced in Habiganj Industrial Park, to reach Agartala in India's Tripura through the Akhaura border. But a new Indian restriction on land imports from Bangladesh has thrown the PRAN Group into a logistical nightmare.

Now, to get the same shipment to Agartala, it must travel nearly 2,000 kilometres through the Bhomra land port, passing through four Indian states--adding several days to the journey.

PRAN officials fear that once the price inflation from this detour is factored in, the feasibility of exporting such goods to India's remote northeastern states, known as the "Seven Sisters", becomes highly un...