The Dhaka, New Delhi relations touched a new milestone on Tuesday when the Indian High Commission issued the 1.5 millionth visa for a Bangladeshi. This is the record in the history of India that they have issued 1.5 million visas from a country in a year. “It reflects the growing people-to-people contact between the countries,” Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Riva Ganguly Das said while handing over visas to three freedom fighters in a ceremony marking the milestone.
She handed over the passports to Md. Shafiqul Islam, Noor Mohammed Mallik and Md. Atiar Rehman with a flower bouquet and a shawl at the Indian Visa Application Center (IVAC) at Jamuna Future Park, the largest visa center in the world. They got five-year multiple visas as entitled as freedom fighters.
The historic relations between India-Bangladesh began in 1971 when Indian army shed blood for Bangladesh’s birth. In recent years the multi-dimensional cooperation took a new turn as it ranges from traditional sectors of tourism, health and education to frontier technologies of nuclear science, space and information technology.
Ten deals for cooperation in various sectors were signed only in 2019. Both the governments are undertaking various measures to restore the pre-1965 rail links and other connectivity links that existed between India and Bangladesh. Apart from increasing the frequency of rail services, both the governments decided to commence Dhaka-Siliguri-Gangtok-Dhaka and Dhaka-Siliguri-Darjeeling-Dhaka bus service to enhance people to people contacts.
Bangladesh is also the biggest development partner of India today as it extended 3 Lines of Credits (LOC) in the last eight years amounting to $ 8 billion for development of infrastructure in various sectors including roads, railways, shipping and ports.
Both countries also resolved the long pending land boundary as well as maritime issues. Teesta water sharing deal remained pending. The India’s national citizenship exercise or NRC also became a cause of concern for Bangladesh as nearly 2 million people mostly Muslims have been left off the list of Assam. Many fear they can be pushed into Bangladesh.
The High Commissioner congratulated the three freedom fighters who received the visa as number 15,00,000, 15,00,001 and 15,00,002. People-to-people contact is the ‘foundation’ of any diplomacy, she said, expecting that the number would grow by the day. Bangladeshis travel to India for many reasons from tourism to medical treatment.
The Jamuna Future Park visa centre which was inaugurated in July 2018 made the visa application hassle-free with its state-of-the-art services at 18,500 square feet space. Services include computer-generated token vending machines indicating waiting time, comfortable seating in an air-conditioned waiting area, coffee and soft drinks via vending machines, food kiosks and as many as 48 counters for visa applications.
There are separate counters for senior citizens, women, freedom fighters and business applicants. India issues five-year multiple entry visas for freedom fighters, senior citizens and businessmen.
