"The Asian Development Bank is ready to fully finance a bridge building project connecting Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka. The project was also discussed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his counterpart during the latter's recent visit," Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha.
The India-Sri Lanka connectivity project cost is pegged at about Rs 24,000 crore.
A major milestone was the signing of the Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) in Thimphu to facilitate seamless movement of passenger and cargo vehicles in the region, he said.
Under BBIN MVA, a cargo trial run was held on the 640 km Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala route last month, which was a substantial reduction compared to the traditional 1,550 km transit route from Kolkata to Agartala via Siliguri-Guwahati- Silchar, he said.
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Once BBIN and other agreements are operationalised, the dream of seamless movement of all types of vehicles between SAARC and ASEAN nations will become a reality and "I hope that this will happen soon", he said.
"A total of 10 sub-projects have been included in JICA's
In order to fulfil the need to promote seamless road transportation and social and technical collaboration for closer regional economic cooperation, he said his Ministry has taken initiative for cross-border passenger transportation and several new bus services on many routes have been started between India and Bangladesh and Nepal.
These include bus services on routes like Delhi- Kathmandu, Varanasi-Kathmandu, Kolkata-Agartala via Dhaka and Guwahati-Shillong-Dhaka.
A parallel and significant initiative has been taken by the Ministry for a trilateral pact between India-Myanmar- Thailand (IMT), and is expected to be signed by March 2016, he said.
"This will open the way for movement of cargo and passengers (including personal vehicles) from South to South East Asia up to Thailand," Gadkari said.