Indian President visit in March

Pranab Mukherji’s first trip abroad after becoming India’s president will be to Bangladesh in early March, officials said.

The President has said he wants to cut down on trips abroad unlike his predecessor Ms Pratibha Patil, who burned up millions of dollars on her trips to foreign countries.

The Congress-led government is asking for financial austerity and the President wants to set an example, officials say.

But they said Mukherji wants to go ahead with his visit to Bangladesh in the first part of March to take forward the cause of bilateral relations.

Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid who will be to Dhaka on a two-day visit beginning February 16 will do the spadework for the President’s visit, officials at the ministry of external affairs say.

But Khurshid is yet to set up his meeting with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerji that he had planned to iron out differences over the Teesta water-sharing deal and the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh.

Khurshid recently told the Indian media that a dialogue is on with BNP and other opposition parties to ensure passage of the Land Boundary agreement in the next session of the parliament.

But he has not said anything about the Teesta deal, except that
“we have made commitments to Bangladesh which we will have to honour.”

The Teesta deal is stuck primarily because of Mamata Banerji’s opposition as she says it might affect the ‘interests’ of the northern districts of her state.

But analysts say she wants to use the Teesta bargain to get a special financial package out of the federal government to bail out her cash strapped government which may even face trouble paying salaries to government employees shortly.