Kathmandu, November 23:

An Indian diplomat has said that India will continue to support Nepal in both large infrastructure development and community-based projects.

Dr Kheya Bhattacharya, minister at the economic cooperation wing, embassy of India in Kathmandu today said that India has not shifted its priority from large-scale infrastructure development projects to small programmes. “Instead India is expanding its reach to grass-roots through such community driven projects designed on the basis of needs felt at local level,” she said.

Dr Bhattacharya also made a presentation on ‘India and Nepal: Partnership in Economic Development-five decades of economic cooperation’. She informed that India’s economic cooperation to Nepal in various fields has jumped to Rs 14,000 million in 2003-05 from earlier. According to her, 112 projects including 80-90 small and community-based projects are under execution at present.

Among the large projects, upgradation of infrastructure at four check posts along the Indo-Nepal border and East-West Highway optical fibre projects are very crucial for economic development of Nepal.

The border check posts upgrading project worth over Rs 4,000 million Indian Currency (IC) is to modernise facilities of check posts at Raxaul-Birgunj, Jogbani-Biratnagar, Sunauli-Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj. The East-West Optic Fibre Network that links 80 stations covering 904-km and catering to 70 per cent of Nepal’s population is a landmark project in telecommunications development of Nepal.