Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday urged India to be more generous and liberal in helping to resolve pending bilateral issues such as water management. She also appealed to India to import more from Bangladesh to remove the gap in trade. Indian investors too should make more investments, she said.
Addressing the India-Bangladesh Business Meet, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) in association with Government of Tripura, the Bangladesh Prime Minister, who arrived here with a big team of more than 100 members on a two-day visit to Tripura, said that bilateral discussions were already being held on the issues of water management and hoped that India would step forward with a more liberal attitude in this regard to resolve the issue.
She said Bangladesh strongly believed that any bilateral issue could always be resolved through dialogue and India being a vast country will be more liberal in dealing with issues such as water management.
ADVERTISEMENT
She said that Bangladesh gave top priority to maintaining friendly relations with its neighbour and many bilateral issues such as land-border management and border settlement had been resolved during her visit to Delhi in 2010 and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in 2011.
Reiterating Bangladesh's strong commitment towards maintenance of a peaceful atmosphere in the entire region so that trade and commerce could flourish, the Bangladesh Prime Minister said that ever since her government came to power, it had taken a resolute stand not to tolerate any kind extremism or militancy.
She also asked India to give Bangladesh a share of its power, to be generated from the 726 megawatt Palatana power project that had come up in Tripura. With the cooperation between the two countries, her request is likely to be met shortly.
ADVERTISEMENT
Describing her visit to Tripura as a historic occasion, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar also underlined the need for India to be more liberal on bilateral issues with Bangladesh.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal underlined the need for more collaboration between India and Bangladesh in human resource development and called for creating a framework in the next few months to allow mobility of youth across the border.