Jagdishor Panday
The South Asian close neighbours Nepal and Bangladesh have close and cordial relations even before they had initiated formal diplomatic relationship. Nepal supported Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom during the latter’s Liberation War in 1971. After Bangladesh became independent, Nepal was one the first countries that recognised Bangladesh as a new nation. Nepal and Bangladesh established diplomatic relations in 1972.
After that both the countries cherished the relations further not only bilaterally but also at various regional, sub-regional and multilateral forums. Nepal and Bangladesh are members of SAARC and BIMSTEC while they work together at BBIN. At the UN, the two countries share common interests, values and subject matters.
These years the political relations between the two countries transformed into economic, transportation, connectivity, transit, investment and energy cooperation. The opening of Kakarbhitta-Phulbari-Banglabandha transit route in 1997 is an important addition to this relationship. Bangladesh has permitted Nepal to use the port facilities in Mongla. Moreover, Bangladesh has also provided an additional rail transit corridor to Nepal via Rohanpur (Bangladesh)-Singhabad (India).
Now, the trade and transit relations between these two friendly countries have been upgraded to energy export-import level. During the last two decades, one of the prominent issues raised between these two countries is energy diplomacy with other South Asian neighbours.
Interestingly, these energy issues occupied a significant part of internal politics of both the countries. For example; during the elections in Nepal, leaders of political parties’ delivered speeches in front of the people by stating that Nepal will supply energy to Bangladesh through the Indian route and earn money to contribute to our economy.
Whereas Bangladeshi leaders also deliver speeches in Dhaka that they will import energy from Nepal and it would help Bangladeshi people in terms of energy consumption. For a decade, during the ambassadorial hearing session in parliament, the ambassador designate to Bangladesh stated that they will try to work to export energy to Bangladesh from Nepal.
In April 2022, Nepal and India have in principle agreed to involve Bangladesh as a partner for energy cooperation by issuing the Joint Vision Statement on Power Sector Cooperation during Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s official visit to India. That document shaped the energy cooperation between not only Nepal-India but also with Bangladesh.
To trade energy, Nepal and Bangladesh need to convince India in the middle because without India the energy trade will be not possible. Both Nepal and Bangladesh sides repeatedly requested India for its consent to energy transmission through its territory.
During her visit to India in April 2017, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina requested Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for facilitating the cross-border power sector cooperation with Nepal. Not only on her visit, the then Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and current Prime Minister Puspa Kamal Dahal also requested Prime Minister Modi to facilitate cross-border power sector cooperation during their official visits to New Delhi, in 2022 and 2023.
Nepal’s Ambassador to Bangladesh Ghanshyam Bhandari has been working hard in Dhaka to materialise the energy deal between the two countries. Whenever necessary, he has been consulting with Bangladeshi officials to make energy deals more beneficial to both the countries.
The result of all the hard work from both sides at high-level to other bilateral mechanisms is that India has allowed Nepal to export 40 Megawatts (MW) of electricity to Bangladesh through the existing transmission infrastructure. This is just the beginning of energy trade for the two countries. We can expand it further in future with more hard work and dedication.
In January in the interaction programme in Kathmandu valley, Bangladeshi Ambassador to Nepal Salahuddin Noman Chowdhury said that his country’s current generation has not been enough to meet the growing demand for power and Nepal could fill that gap. He said that currently, Bangladesh has the generation capacity of around 25,000MW against the demand of over 30,000MW. ‘If Nepal supplies us 3,000–4,000MW right now, we can consume it all.’
In the meantime, the energy trade idea has also been discussed at sub-regional body BBIN. Under this framework agreement, some Bangladeshis have shown their interests to invest in Nepal’s hydropower projects. However, it is yet to be materialised. Bhutan was not interested to work in this sub-regional format. So, Nepal and Bangladesh focused on a trilateral way to make the energy deal with India.
Nepal, Bangladesh and India in May, 2023, agreed to sign a tripartite agreement. The agreement was signed between the NEA of Nepal, the Bangladesh Power Development Board and the NVVN of India during the meeting of the energy secretary-level joint steering committee meeting. Before that Bangladesh had sent a draft request for proposal (RfP) in response to which Nepal had raised the question of fixing tariff. Both countries are working on it now.
The long and continuous work by Nepal and Bangladesh to send energy from Nepal to Bangladesh via India is an indication of active energy diplomacy that the two countries pursue. It will have to be strengthened further for mutual benefits of both the sender and the recipient.
Adopted from Daily Sun Bangladesh
The writer is a deputy chief sub-editor at the Kantipur Daily
