Nepal’s President Bidya Devi Bhandari will begin her state visit to India from Monday. India’s relations with Nepal are people-centric and are centered on refining connectivity between the neighbors in addition to energy infrastructure, said India.
“We have maintained our focus on implementation of ongoing connectivity and development projects such as Terai roads, cross-border rail lines linkages, development of integrated check posts on the border, cross-border oil pipeline, the first in South Asia, and cross-border transmission lines,” said Joint secretary, Nepal and Bhutan, in the Indian external affairs ministry Sudhakar Dalela.
Dalela was briefing media on the upcoming visit in New Delhi. Bhandari is paying a state visit to India from April 17 to 21, in her first foreign tour. She was invited by her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee.
Apart from meeting top Indian leaders, Bhandari, accompanied by a top 33-member delegation, will also visit Gujarat and Odisha. The visit reflects “the priority India attaches to further strengthening the age-old unique partnership with Nepal and our shared historical and cultural linkages and strong people to people connection”, Dalela said.
Collaboration between the two countries in the area of energy infrastructure is seeing a new high with the Indian cabinet approving investment of Rs 5,723 crore for Arun 3 power project and other projects in Nepal.
“We have almost finished work on two more transmission line projects from Raxaul to Parwanipur(Nepal) and Kushaha (Nepal)-Kataiya and we believe with the conclusion of these two projects, we will be able to supply more power to Nepal,” Dalela said while talking about power transmission lines.
