The Indian Cabinet on Thursday approved the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nepal to construct a bridge over the Mahakali river to link Dharchula in Uttarakhand to Nepal’s Dharchula.
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said the bridge will be completed in three years. He stressed that creating an open border will facilitate people-to-people ties, kinship, and culture. Likewise, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami celebrated the approval and said it will promote economic growth in the region.
On the same day, the Nepalese and Indian foreign ministers, Narayan Khadka and S Jaishankar, also held a telephonic conversation to exchange information about the progress made on bilateral development projects and post-earthquake reconstruction.
India recently launched several infrastructure projects with Nepal in regions affected by the 2015 earthquake. These projects have led to the construction of 50,000 houses in Gorkha for 26,912 people and several others in Nuwakor for 23,088 beneficiaries.
In July 2021, the two sides also signed an MoU for a 79-megawatt hydropower plant in the Sankhuwasabha and Bhojpur districts of Eastern Nepal. It is the second hydropower plant developed by India. The first was the $1.04 billion 900 megawatts Arun-3 hydroelectric project in the Arun River.
Since the ouster of pro-China leader KP Sharma Oli as the country’s Prime Minister (PM), Nepal has been reviving its partnership with India. In fact, at his swearing-in ceremony, Foreign Minister Khadka said he would “work towards maintaining friendly and balanced relations with India and China and forge national consensus with political parties on matters of foreign relations.”
As a part of these efforts to revive the ties between the two nations, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba was scheduled to visit India to participate in the Vibrant Gujarat Investor Summit on January 10. However, the Gujarat government cancelled the event owing to a surge in COVID-19 cases. According to a Nepalese Foreign Ministery official quoted by Kathmandu Times, the two sides were planning to sign eight MoUs on various issues.