Last day of meet sees projects lined up for SAARC

The first SAARC Transport Ministers’ meeting ended on Friday in New Delhi with some headstart on regional connectivity...

The first SAARC Transport Ministers’ meeting ended on Friday in New Delhi with some headstart on regional connectivity corridors suggested last year in the SAARC Regional Multi-modal Transport Study (SRMTS). Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways T R Baalu was elected Chairperson of the meet.

In the meeting presided by Baalu, India recommended road and rail corridors along the Nepal-India-Bangladesh circuit with air connectivity to Male and Islamabad, and also made a case for improving postal connectivity in the region. Bhutan called for prioritisation of the Phuntsholing-Hashimara link while Sri Lanka recommended that a rail corridor be taken up between Chennai and Colombo with ferry service between Colombo and Cochin.

Member states will examine the viability/desirability of these projects and report it at the third meeting of the Inter-Governmental Group on Transport scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in March 2008.

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Baalu said this meeting is important given the directive of the Heads of Governments at the 14th SAARC Summit held in April in New Delhi to move SAARC from the declaratory to the implementation stage.

The Minister pointed out that selection of connectivity as the core theme for the 14th SAARC Summit was inevitable as against the current forces of market liberalisation and technical advances in communication, more and more people are getting connected to each other. “Why should we as Members of South-Asia be left behind,” he added.

Baalu also said there should be a focussed list of road, rail, water and aviation corridors, which is easily implementable. There is a need to strengthen the air connectivity with the SAARC capitals to accelerate the connectivity, he said. Some thoughts on Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) input for operationalising the fiscal infrastructure through an agreement could also be looked forward to, Baalu added.

The meeting also deliberated on the report of the SRMTS prepared and funded by ADB and recommended extending the SRMTS to include Afghanistan. The member states examined the preliminary technical inputs provided by ADB and the alternate draft motor Vehicles Agreement proposed by India.

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The three-day meeting included sessions on Technical Committee discussions and an Inter-governmental group meet with representatives from all member nations, including the new member state Afghanistan.

Pilot sub-regional and regional projects recommended by India

• Birgunj-Kaatihar-Singhabad-Rohanpur-Chittagong with links to Jogbani, Biratnagar and Agartala

• Kathmandu-Birgunj-Kolkata/Haldia

• Agartala-Akhaura-Chittagong

• Air-connectivities—Malé-New Delhi and Islamabad-New Delhi