Mukul outlines priorities ahead of B’desh tour
By Our Spl Correspondent
Shillong: Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma is all set to accompany Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Bangladesh on September 6-7 to hold talks on a number of issues foremost amongst which are trade and commerce related and the ticklish border issue.
Talking to The Shillong Times, Dr Sangma said he has proposed to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to include two other ministers and senior officers on the entourage but the final decision rests with the above two authorities. When asked to name the two ministers to accompany him Dr Mukul said he would take that call only on Monday.
Dr Sangma said the talking points would include taking the trade with Bangladesh beyond coal export. “We have to leverage our relationship with Bangladesh as a transit point for trade and commerce. Bangladesh is now a friendly neighbour, so we need to explore possibilities of trading beyond Bangladesh by using Chittagong port,” adding that this would bring down cost of imports of machinery and other products because the distance would be greatly reduced.
Talking about promoting tourism as a package deal, Dr Sangma said that Sylhet has a daily flight to Heathrow airport in London and it takes only 45 minutes from Sylhet to Dawki, so tourists could be wooed through this route to come to Meghalaya, Assam and other states.
On the enduring border dispute which has lasted since 1971 when Bangladesh was formed, Dr Sangma said, “We need to find a permanent solution to the issue since it takes away our focus from governance and development. Instead of trouble-shooting all the time, it is now time to find a win-win situation between the two countries. Of course the border issue is not Meghalaya-centric. The 2000-km border with different states has to be resolved at the level of the PM,” Dr Sangma stated.
Dr Sangma, who also holds the Tourism portfolio, said that it is high time to promote tourism circuits and make hospitality packages attractive by linking North East India to Thailand, Bangladesh and Bhutan using Buddhism as a selling point. He was also speaking of connecting to Australia and New Zealand through the Bangladesh route in the State’s new tourism promotion policy.
