The solid foundation of unwavering relations

The Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to the country is hailed yet again as an important visit to landmark the close ties shared by this small nation with a remarkably giant and powerful neighbor.

Regardless of size, geographical limitations or military might; factors that criss-cross for different interpretations, India has been the closest to Bhutan literally in the geographical sense as well as in realistic aspects of putting forth support in the nation’s development sphere.

Considering the journey from 1949, when the Indo-Bhutan treaty was signed, the Indian cooperation and reassuring supports have only grown in magnitude while the ties of old have only renewed in faith and strength.

Earlier when the Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Bhutan, making it his first state visit upon being newly elected, he had mentioned in his address that it was a ‘natural’ move for him that he chose this nation for his first visit as Indian Prime Minister.

For a time-tested relation that has spanned across decades, its path has always been marked not just by flowery speeches but strongly cemented by real allegiance and unwavering support for each other.

Likewise, the visiting President is himself witness to this continuing Indo-Bhutan ties as he has been a part of the developmental process that changed Bhutan’s economic conditions for betterment in the years left behind and the present.

President Mukherjee first visited for the first time as the Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Commission for the Plan talks, later he was also there for the signing of the Tala hydroelectric project in 1996. Two strikingly prominent events that now churns the country’s developmental sphere.

President Pranab Mukherjee was the foreign minister of India when the historic India-Bhutan Friendship Treaty was signed in 2007 in New Delhi. The event is historical as it placed renewed faith in the previous treaty of 1949.

The Indian President while in-country will launch three major projects, the Jigme Wangchuck Power Training Institute at Dekiling in Sarpang, the double-laning of the East-West highway, and the Yelchen central school in Pemagatshel, all made possible through the generous assistance of the Indian government.

A very telling testament of the enormously supportive role India has played in developing the chief economic activity of this nation – the hydropower projects.

Bhutan has a potential of 30,000MW in the sector and India has been instrumental in aiding the country to harness the maximum out of it.

Bhutan has a set objective to harness 10,000MW of the total potential by 2020 and India has pledged to buy the exported electricity. A visible cohesion in relationship and a viable synergy in commerce is thus generated between the two. While the great nation helps out its smaller neighbor, the latter is also able to extend its help in terms of lighting up multiple homes in the Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal and Delhi.

Under the same line of the Indian aid, three more HEPs totalling 2,940 MW, i.e., the 1,200 MW Punatsangchu-I HEP, the 1020 MW Punatsangchu-II HEP and the 720 MW Mangdechu HEP, are under construction, and are scheduled to be commissioned by 2018.

Published as Editorial for Business Bhutan on November 8, 2014