India today sought speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements, as well as liberalisation of the export licensing procedures, to move forward the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
“This deal is very high on our priority. We are conscious of the fact that it was the US government which did the heavy hitting, if I may use a cricketing metaphor to get this deal through,” said India’s new Ambassador to US Meera Shankar said, stating that India was committed to move forward on the deal. “We would very much like to move forward in a concrete way with agreements for building nuclear reactors with US assistance in India,” Shankar said at a reception hosted in her honour by the US-India Business Council (USIBC). This was her maiden public engagement after presenting her credentials to President Barack Obama yesterday.
“We are looking at the speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements to facilitate this process,” said Shankar, acknowledging the presence of leaders of the US nuclear industry who are anxious to convert the nuclear deal into business agreements.
Both sides have agreed to commence this process and have identified their nodal points. “So we expect to pursue this very expeditiously,” she added.
“We are also looking at the liability issues, which is a concern for US companies and that is something on which the Indian government has a policy discussion and is expected to try to move the issue forward,” the new ambassador said. Comprising some 300 American and Indian companies, including many top 500, USIBC is the largest Indo-US trade body and had played a key role in the passage of the civilian nuclear deal.
“Overall, I would say there is enormous potential which I see and I see there is a huge synergy between India and the US,” she said, expressing satisfaction in the growth of ties between the two countries. Unlike in the past when one looked with scepticism at the country, she said India no longer had a credibility problem on the economic reform process. “We face the world with a greater degree of openness and that is the direction in which we will move,” she said, noting that the Indian economy today is more confident. Stating that for the Indian government the challenge now is to grow the economy on three legs — agriculture and rural development, industry and services — Shankar said these are the three pillars where the US can be a very good partner for India and the potential of which exists is enormous.”
