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India okays Bangladesh-Nepal bridge

Last Updated 23 August 2017, 19:24 IST

India will build a bridge to link Bangladesh with Nepal via West Bengal, as it moves to respond to China’s Belt-and-Road initiative with its own regional connectivity plans.

The Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved a Memorandum of Understanding to lay a bridge over the Mechi River to link Panitanki in Darjeeling district with Kakarvitta in Nepal.

Sources told Deccan Herald that the MoU is likely to be signed after the meeting between Modi and Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in New Delhi on Thursday.   Deuba began his first official visit to India on Wednesday after becoming Nepal’s Prime Minister more than two months ago. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received him at the airport.

The Nepalese Premier is the first foreign Head of Government to visit New Delhi after India-China relations hit fresh nadir over the face-off between the two national armies at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan.

New Delhi, sources said, is attaching greater importance to the visit As China is trying harder to challenge India’s influence over its South Asian neighbours like Nepal.

The 1500-meter-long new bridge over Mechi River on India-Nepal border is estimated to cost Rs 158.65 crore. New Delhi will fund the project with a loan from Asian Development Bank.

The bridge would also connect Bangladesh and Nepal as the India-Nepal border at Panitanki-Kakarvitta is just about 34 kilometers from the India-Bangladesh border at Phulbari-Banglabandha. This would ease the cargo traffic between the two neighbours.

“The construction of the bridge will improve regional connectivity and has potential to strengthen cross border trade between both the countries and cementing ties by strengthening industrial, social and cultural exchanges,” the government said in a statement after the Union Cabinet’s approval of the MoU on Wednesday.

India is challenging China’s ambitious One-Belt-One-Road initiative by its own projects for connectivity within and beyond its neighbourhood. It declined to join the OBOR since one of its components – China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – is passing through areas in Jammu & Kashmir it considers as illegally occupied by Pakistan.

Following Islamabad’s blocking of a pact among the SAARC nations for hassle-free cargo and passenger vehicle movement, India has carried on with its own initiatives to link the other.

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(Published 23 August 2017, 19:24 IST)

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