India has offered to take up “asymmetrical responsibilities”, including unilateral steps to liberalise trade, visa and tourism, with regard to SAARC countries, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday.
Chairing a meeting of Consultative Committee on External Affairs, he said India favours physical, economic and people-to-people connectivity with other members of the eight-nation South Asian grouping.
Mukherjee briefed the committee on latest developments in SAARC and in this regard referred to the successful 14th Summit held on April 3-4.
With inclusion of Afghanistan into SAARC, the Summit saw first expansion of the seven-nation grouping, he said.
The minister said India has offered to take up “assymetrical responsibilities, including unilateral measures to liberalise trade, visa and tourism”, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.
Mukherjee also apprised the committee about India’s partnership with African countries, including initiatives taken in the field of technical cooperation, human resource development, investment, trade and peacekeeping operations.
He also spoke about the progress in implementation of Pan-African e-network project being undertaken by India.
Pilot project of the e-network programme, which will connect Africa’s 53 nations via satellite, was launched earlier this month by Mukherjee during a visit to Ethiopia.
A brainchild of President A P J Abdul Kalam, the Rs 542.9 crore project for tele-education and tele-medicine aims at bridging the digital divide in Africa.