India, Nepal will be soon connected by 2 rail links, says FS Shringla

By Sidhant Sibal

New Delhi:  Calling railway links causing a "rapid shrinking of South Asia's Geography", Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla has said India and Nepal will be linked by 2 railway links while India Bangladesh will be linked by 6 rail link. With emphasis on connectivity in the region, speaking at the Inaugural Session of the Training Module on India’s Neighbourhood, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Foreign secretary said," Improved connectivity means greater people-to-people contact and greater goodwill", adding, "travel between India and three of its neighbours – Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives – does not require visas. Our diplomatic Missions in Sri Lanka and Yangon report an increasing trend in the number of visas being issued."

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India and Nepal are working on railway service between Kurtha-Jayanagar. The test run for the railway service between India's Jayanagar to Nepal's Kurtha has already been conducted. Indian Railway's Konkan railway cooperation is helping Nepal railways in the establishment of the service that will help people from both sides of the border. As far as India and Bangladesh are concerned, 5 pre 1965 railway links have been revived between the 2 countries. These include, Petrapole (India) - Benapole (Bangladesh), Gede (India) - Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India) Rohanpur (Bangladesh), Radhikapur (India) - Birol (Bangladesh) with Haldibari-Chilahati forming the 5th such link.

On energy links, FS Shringla said, "Indian grid is connected to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh through high-capacity connections. Trans-national movement of electricity in the neighborhood is a reality.". India supplies around 1160 MW of power to Bangladesh, about 700 MW to Nepal, and imports 1.8 GW from Bhutan. Apart from this India has been able to created 2100 MW of hydropower capacity in Bhutan and is constructing the 1320 MW Maitree Super Thermal Power Project in Bangladesh.

The top Indian diplomat pointed to India's "neighbourhood first policy" which he explained requires "us to be proactive in augmenting cooperation with our Neighbours in capacity-building and in the implementation of projects". India's Lines of Credit to its Neighbours have jumped from US$ 3.27 billion in 2014 to US$ 14.7 billion in 2020.

On China he said, "We have made it clear to China that peace and tranquility in the border areas is essential for the development of our relationship" and "development of India-China relationship has to be based on 'three mutuals' - mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest." His comments on china comes just days ahead of the 15th round of military talks that will take place on Friday. It is expected that resolution on PP15 friction point will be the key focus on this round of talks.