India, Bangladesh agree to begin talks on free trade, Sheikh Hasina flags Teesta

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, September 6

India and Bangladesh on Tuesday provided further momentum to bilateral relations by agreeing to begin free trade talks, inaugurating several projects and assuaging each other’s concerns on regional security and protection of minorities.

But for an agreement on Teesta river water-sharing, visiting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held extensive discussions on political and security cooperation, energy partnership, water corporation, trade and economic ties, development partnership and strengthening people-to-people ties, said Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra at a special briefing after the talks.

PM Modi said India and Bangladesh should jointly face terrorist and fundamentalist forces that threatened to attack mutual trust between the two countries. The two sides also signed seven MoUs. Modi and Hasina also inaugurated important projects, including the first unit of the joint Maitree thermal power plant and the Rupsha bridge. The 1,320-MW (660×2) Maitree plant is being set up with Indian assistance worth over Rs 12,500 crore. The 5.13-km Rupsha rail bridge will connect Bangladesh’s Mongla Port with India.

India will supply to Bangladesh 25 packages of road maintenance and construction equipment and machinery. The Khulna-Darshana railway line link project was also announced to upgrade the existing (doubling of broad gauge) infrastructure.

Another project, Parbatipur-Kaunia railway line, will see the conversion of the existing metre-gauge line to dual-gauge line. It will connect to the existing cross-border rail at Birol (Bangladesh) with Radhikapur (West Bengal).

The two sides also sought to take care of each other’s sensitivities with Bangladesh assuring, both publicly and privately, the safety of minorities, said the Foreign Secretary. Sporadic but vicious attacks against the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh generally peak around the approaching Durga Puja festival when community celebrations are in full swing.

India lauded Bangladesh’s role in supporting nearly 12 lakh Rohingya who had fled Myanmar after a military crackdown. With UN funding having been reduced due to its newer commitments, Dhaka wants support from elsewhere to sustain them. Both leaders underscored the importance of continuing close security cooperation in the fields of counter-terrorism, border management and cross-border crimes.

Hasina did not shy away from seeking an early resolution of the Teesta issue.

Kushiyara river pact, first in 25 years

Both sides signed an interim water-sharing pact for Kushiyara river, the first such agreement since the Ganga water treaty in 1996

Seven MoUs inked

1 Withdrawal of water from common border river Kushiyara

2 Indian Railways to train B’desh Railway personnel in India

3 Will also collaborate to create IT systems for B’desh Railways

4 National Judicial Academy to train Bangladesh officers

5 Science & tech coop between CSIR, B’desh research council

6 Both nations to cooperate in areas of space technology

7 Cooperation between Prasar Bharti, Bangladesh Television