The prime minister's foreign affairs adviser, Dr Gawher Rizvi, on Thursday said there is no need to hurry to enter into an agreement with India over transit, and the country's benefit is above all other considerations.
'Nobody can solve overnight the problems pertaining to transit, but we have to start the process…At this stage, given the infrastructure, movement will be on a small scale,' he said.
Rizvi was speaking at a seminar on 'Regional connectivity and transit: Bangladesh perspective', organized by the Media Initiative for Public Policy in collaboration with the Press Institute of Bangladesh.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue's distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya, Mohammad Yunus of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, PIB's director Rafiqul Islam Chowdhury and the Associated Press Bureau's chief Farid Hossain also addressed the seminar.
Rizvi said that connectivity is an indicator of a society's progress and the society which remains disconnected is deprived of development.
He said that India is only a part of the connectivity network which will provide Bangladesh the scope of being connected with the whole of Asia.
He termed the issue of connectivity tabled by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her visit to India in January 2010 as 'future investment' for the nation.
Debapriya Bhattacharya feared that any hasty agreement on would deprive Bangladesh of its due benefits, and said that the national interest cannot be sacrificed in the name of 'transit'.
Admitting that the nation which closes its doors to the rest of the world is illiterate, he still warned that Bangladesh is yet not ready for connectivity with India.
Debapriya suggested that public opinion should be built up in transit's favour and thorough technical analysis must be undertaken before any agreement is signed with India on connectivity.
Mentioning the ongoing debate on a transit deal with India, he said everybody is highlighting the reasons against it, but nobody is discussing its benefits.
'Transit has to be economically viable, and very visibly, to make it sustainable, otherwise it will politically suicidal,' Debapriya warned.
BIDS's research director Muhammad Yunus said a recent study by the Asian Development Bank revealed that an investment of more than $3 billion was necessary to build the needed infrastructure for transit.
Other speakers at the seminar opposed any ad hoc agreement on transit and recommended a framework agreement involving other regional countries like Nepal and Bhutan.
Source : New Age
