Efforts On To Make India-Nepal Ties Superhit: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Nepalese counterpart Pushpakamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on Thursday held wide-ranging talks focusing on boosting India-Nepal cooperation in several areas including energy, connectivity and trade.

It is the first bilateral trip abroad by Pushpakamal Dahal ' since he assumed the top office in December 2022.

The Modi-Prachanda talks hold immense importance, particularly in light of recent media reports suggesting potential conspiracies to use Nepal's soil for anti-India operations.

India and Nepal will strive to take their relationship to Himalayan heights and resolve the boundary issue and all such matters in this spirit, PM Modi said after holding wide-ranging talks with his Nepalese counterpart Pushpakamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.

PM Modi said he and Prachanda took many important decisions to make the partnership between the two countries a "super hit" in the future even as the two leaders remotely inaugurated a number of projects and laid the foundation stone of some others.

The two sides also signed seven agreements to boost cooperation in a range of areas, including extension of cross-border petroleum pipeline, development of integrated check posts and boosting cooperation in hydroelectric power. One of the key pacts signed was the revised India-Nepal treaty of transit.

"We will continue to strive to take our relationship to Himalayan heights. And in this spirit, we will resolve all issues, be it boundary related or any other issue," PM Modi said in presence of Prachanda.

"I remember, nine years ago, in 2014, within three months of taking office, I made my first visit to Nepal. At that time I had given a 'hit' formula for India-Nepal relations -- Highways, I-ways, and Trans-ways," Modi said.

"I had said that we will establish such a relationship between India and Nepal that our borders do not become barriers between us," he said.

Nepal is important for India in the context of its overall strategic interests in the region, and the leaders of the two countries have often noted the age-old Roti-Beti relationship which refers to cross-border marriages between people of the two countries.

India shares a border of over 1,850 km with five Indian states - Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Land-locked Nepal relies heavily on India for the transportation of goods and services.

Nepal's access to the sea is through India, and it imports a predominant proportion of its requirements from and through India.

The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950 forms the bedrock of the special relations between the two countries.

Nepalese Foreign Minister NP Saud, who is part of Prime Minister Prachanda's delegation, said on Wednesday that a wide range of issues including trade, transit, connectivity and the border issues will figure in the bilateral talks.

Pushpakamal Dahal is on a four-day visit to India on Wednesday.

During the visit, the Nepalese Prime Minister will meet President Draupadi Murmu and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar too. He will also visit Ujjain and Indore in Madhya Pradesh, where he is expected to discuss cleanliness initiatives and waste management systems.