Dhaka, Delhi mull cross- border LNG pipeline

Bangladesh and India are exploring the possibility of building a cross-border pipeline for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and an LNG terminal, said Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla yesterday.

An "India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline" is already under construction, he said, adding that India's energy grids were increasingly being integrated with those of its neighbours Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh via high-capacity connections.

Shringla was addressing an event in Mussoorie to inaugurate the first session of a training module on India's "Neighbourhood First" policy for administrative service officers.

India supplies about 1,160 megawatts (MW) of power to Bangladesh, about 700MW to Nepal and imports 1.8 gigawatts (GW) from Bhutan, he said.

India has also taken the lead in raising the region's power generation capacity, such as enabling Bhutan to generate 2,100MW of hydroelectricity, and is currently constructing a 1,320MW thermal power plant in Bangladesh, Shringla added.

The Indian foreign secretary singled out India-Bangladesh ties to underline the neighbourhood first policy.

"The only country that our president, prime minister and external affairs minister have all visited since the Covid-19 pandemic struck has been Bangladesh," he said.

"They did so to cement a very special relationship on the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Bangladesh and the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations," he remarked.

Referring to connectivity in South Asia, he said India and Bangladesh would soon be connected via six rail links, and India and Nepal via two rail links.

Shringla said India's pursuit of globalisation begins with its neighbourhood. "It is the neighbourhood that comes first and foremost amongst all our foreign policy priorities," he said.