NEW DELHI: Cooperation in a range of areas, from transit power trade to streamlining assistance in legal matters, are expected to be on the agenda for Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s maiden visit to India beginning May 31, people familiar with the matter said.
Some understandings and agreements in the field of energy, especially an arrangement to allow Nepal to sell power to Bangladesh via India, are expected to be finalised during the visit by Dahal, also known as “Prachanda”. India and Nepal are also working on a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) in criminal matters and the issue is expected to figure in the discussions, the people said.
Though both sides are yet to officially announce the visit, Dahal is expected to be in India during May 31-June 3. In addition to holding talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and meeting President Droupadi Murmu in New Delhi on June 1, Dahal is expected to visit Indore in Madhya Pradesh to study the city’s waste management system and cleanliness initiatives, the people said.
Nepal and Bangladesh have pressed India to allow transit power trade in recent years. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina raised the issue of importing power from Nepal and Bhutan through India during her visit to New Delhi last September. The matter also figured during Nepal foreign minister Narayan Prakash Saud’s visit to Dhaka in mid-May, when he urged Bangladeshi companies to invest in his country’s hydropower sector.
{{/usCountry}}Nepal and Bangladesh have pressed India to allow transit power trade in recent years. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina raised the issue of importing power from Nepal and Bhutan through India during her visit to New Delhi last September. The matter also figured during Nepal foreign minister Narayan Prakash Saud’s visit to Dhaka in mid-May, when he urged Bangladeshi companies to invest in his country’s hydropower sector.
{{/usCountry}}“India and Nepal are now close to an understanding and an agreement is expected to be finalised during the Nepalese prime minister’s visit. This will help meet a long-standing demand of Nepal, which has hydropower it wants to trade, and Bangladesh, which needs additional energy,” one of the people cited above said.
Addressing an event in Dhaka on May 13, Saud said Nepal was encouraged by India’s recent response in facilitating energy cooperation. “We are making progressive strides towards the import of power from Nepal to Bangladesh. Once materialised, even if in the form of a small volume of 40-50MW...it would be a huge milestone...for sub-regional cooperation,” he said.
Other agreements related to power trade and construction of transmission lines are expected to be finalised during Dahal’s visit. There could also be forward movement on cooperation in fertilisers, including the setting up of a factory in Nepal, the people said.
Ahead of Dahal’s visit, the two countries held their first round of negotiations on the MLAT in criminal matters on April 13. From the Indian side, the virtual meeting was attended by representatives of the law, home and external affairs ministries and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The Indian side has been pushing for MLAT, which will streamline and speed up the process for seeking assistance in criminal cases, as the existing extradition treaty is now seen as archaic since it was signed on October 1953.
“It is often seen that criminals from India commit crimes and then escape to the other side to avoid capture by police. India and Nepal already have great working relations when it comes to criminal matters, which can be taken forward in terms of information and intelligence-sharing about fugitives and fast-track extraditions,” a person familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity.
Several criminals and terrorists have been arrested by Indian security agencies in Nepal in the past. For instance, former Indian Mujahideen chief Yasin Bhatkal was captured from near the border in Raxaul in Nepal in 2013. Similarly, Amit Kumar, a doctor involved in a multi-crore kidney racket, was caught by the CBI from Nepal in 2018.