Bangkok to Bengaluru: PM Modi, other leaders to virtually inaugurate BIMSTEC energy centre

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of the six other BIMSTEC nations will early next month virtually inaugurate from Bangkok a hub set up in Bengaluru to promote regional energy cooperation, apart from witnessing the signing of an agreement on maritime transport cooperation.

The sixth BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok on April 3 and 4 will also see Modi and the leaders of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand adding momentum to the efforts to establish a regional free trade area comprising the seven landlocked and littoral nations dependent on the Bay of Bengal.

The BIMSTEC maritime transport cooperation agreement will be followed by a motor vehicles agreement for the regulation of passenger, personal and cargo vehicular traffic between and among the member states later.

The BIMSTEC Energy Centre (BEC) has already been set up within the premises of the Central Power Research Institute in Bengaluru. It will formally start operations when the prime minister and the other BIMSTEC leaders will virtually inaugurate it from Bangkok on the sidelines of the summit, a source in New Delhi told DH.

The BEC will manage a regional energy database, conduct feasibility studies for the intra-BIMSTEC projects and enhance cooperation by preparing a framework for networking among national agencies of the BIMSTEC member nations. It will also promote energy security through grid interconnections, renewable energy development and the realisation of energy efficiency. Moreover, the centre will foster capacity building, cross-border investments and infrastructure development for training in the energy sector, according to the BIMSTEC secretariat in Dhaka. It will also function as the Secretariat of the BIMSTEC Grid Interconnection Coordination Committee.

New Delhi wants the BEC in Bengaluru to boost regional energy cooperation – a task that the SAARC Energy Centre set up in Islamabad in March 2006 failed to accomplish in the past 18 years. With SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) in an impasse since 2016, New Delhi has been promoting the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) as an alternative forum for regional cooperation.

The BIMSTEC comprises seven nations, including five of the eight SAARC members. It excludes Pakistan, which India has been accusing of blocking regional connectivity projects conceived within the framework of the SAARC.

The SAARC framework agreement on energy cooperation was signed in 2014, but it could do little in facilitating the integrated operation of the regional grid across the South Asian region and in promoting cross-border power trade. The officials in New Delhi blame it on the obstructionist policies of the government in Islamabad.