Cooperation in the energy sector and improvement in road and port infrastructure are the key areas where India and Bangladesh are looking to engage in a bilateral discussion within the next three months.
Bangladesh Finance Minister AMA Muhith said his government already had a high-level discussion with India on these areas of bilateral cooperation and is expected to hold further discussions in the coming months.
He told this in an interactive session at Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata Sunday night, reports BSS.
After the new government in India, an impression has been conveyed that there will be continuity in policies. Some issues need to be discussed bilaterally, which also include energy cooperation, he said.
“Besides energy cooperation, bilateral discussions are also expected on the use of waterways and land routes for extensive use.”
“In some areas there has been a sort of diagnosis of what is to be done and what not to be done. Then the government in India changed. With the new government, we had a high-level contact last October in Washington and we were told just this month that it would be exactly as it was before,” Muhith said.
“Following that some of the developments, which had taken place in the last four years, are now to be discussed bilaterally and in some areas trilaterally. So, that’s in the offing,” he said.
“One of the areas is energy cooperation. It involves not simply India and Bangladesh but also Bhutan and Nepal.
“With Bhutan and Nepal, we have done some work and we were supposed to put it in a combined gathering of those countries. Exactly at the time, we made this request, there was a change in the government. Now anytime we expect these trilateral meetings - one with Bangladesh, Nepal and India and Bangladesh Bhutan and Nepal on mainly energy cooperation.”
At present, Bangladesh imports around 500 megawatt of power from India and is looking to source more from India as it looks to sustain an average growth rate of 6.2%.
While NTPC is looking to set up a thermal power plant in Bangladesh with cooperation from the Bangladesh power development board, the neighbouring country may also source power from the ONGC Tripura gas-based thermal power project.
Muhith also expressed concern over the low quality of roads and ports, which are important for the two countries.
“There is not enough standard for a substantially increased use. This is the second area where quite a bit of proposals have been formulated and needs to be considered now.
After getting a green signal now from Prime Minister Modi, the process has been expedited. I expect we should be having discussions within the next three months,” he said.
