The Hindu Business Line : `We are engaged in many areas

It would be difficult for any country to match the kind of admiration and affection the Afghan people have for India. India is effectively and visibly engaged in both humanitarian assistance and reconstruction work, administering nearly $600 million from the Government of India's aid fund, Mr Rakesh Sood, India's Ambassador to Afghanistan, told Business Line in an interview in his office in Kabul.

Excerpts from the interview:

How is India engaged in Afghanistan and in what areas?

We're engaged in a range of areas virtually all over Afghanistan. We were one of the first to get involved in infrastructure when many donors were hesitant to go out of Kabul due to the security situation.

We're engaged in infrastructure in a big way; in the Herat province we are re-building the Salma Hydel project at a cost of $90 million and constructing a 220-km road in the south-west region.

Recently when the President, Mr Hamid Karzai, was in India, India announced its decision to build a power transmission line from Kabul and beyond Salam at a cost of $100 million.

So is all this a gift from the people of India?

It is from the Government of India Aid budget. I wouldn't use the word gift; at this moment Afghanistan is not in a position to absorb loans that carry servicing charges. The assistance being given to Afghanistan by India or any other country is more as outright grant.

We also have many smaller projects. In the telecom sector India is setting up CDMA projects in eleven provinces at a cost of $10 million.

India has also strengthened their TV network and contributed 400 buses — both Tata and Ashok Leyland — to the transport ministry, 105 trucks to the Kabul municipality and 200 jeeps and trucks to the Afghan national army.

India is setting up the first cold storage plant in Afghanistan, a 5000-tonne capacity, in Kandahar, which is the fruit bowl of Afghanistan. In the absence of a cold storage, their fruit growers are compelled to sell pomegranates, apples, grapes etc., to merchants in Quetta at very low prices.

What about co-operation in the education sector, because the Afghans really look up to the Indian education system?

One of the most prestigious institutions in Afghanistan, the 100-year-old Habibia School with 12,000 students, where Mr Karzai was once a student was completely destroyed; we are rebuilding and equipping it with lab equipment, computers, etc.

What about the human capital, training of teachers and so on?

Because of the long-term association that Habibia has had with India, there is a bilateral agreement with the Sanskriti Vidyalaya in Delhi, which has already trained 20 teachers. This will be regularised into a twinning arrangement for exchange of students and teachers.

What about scholarships?

India offers a lot of scholarships at the university level. Every year 150 Afghan students are sent to professional and other colleges in India, and some of them are even given travel cost.

How is India helping out with the health services an area that was totally devastated?

Several medical teams from India working here. The Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, a 250-bed hospital set up 30 years ago, and the only paediatric hospital in Afghanistan is being rebuilt. And here we don't have the luxury of shifting the patients somewhere else while the hospital is being rebuilt. So the reconstruction is being done while the hospital is functioning; there is no other option.

We just completed a 100-bed surgical ward and have moved some patients into that.

We are now rebuilding the space that was vacated. It's a fairly large project with a budget of $3 million.

We have five medical teams in Afghanistan working here and in Kandahar, Herat, and Mazare Sharif and they work with the support of local teams.

But is security not a concern in some of the southern areas?

It is. But the people co-operate with them totally. There is no question about it. I've visited the medical missions in Kandahar, and Mazar, among others, and the local people just love the Indian doctors and trust them and their judgment .

Unfortunately there are a lot of adulterated medicines in the local markets. We give free medical supplies to the people because they are poor. We find that there is great faith in both Indian diagnostic skills and Indian medicine.

Their general perception is that to get well one must go to an Indian doctor and take medicines from him. Sometimes when medical supplies run out, people will wait for a day or two for our medicines rather than buy from the local market.

What kind of business opportunities are available here?

There are plenty in the infrastructure sector, and with so much reconstruction going on, virtually all the cement is imported, and Afghanistan has the best raw material to produce cement... lime and gypsum of very high quality.

Cement plants would have a captive market for 5-10 years and export opportunities beyond that. They are now developing new laws on mining and on foreign participation with extracting industries.

What about political stability and peace here, and the repercussions for India? The peace here seems to be so fragile...

During the six year turbulent phase of the Taliban regime, India experienced the repercussions of that development much before the rest of the world became sensitive to it.

From that point of view it is in the interest of the countries in the region to ensure that Afghanistan does not lapse to a state where extremism once again holds sway. So we will do everything possible... and the best guarantee against Afghanistan regressing is democracy and economic development.

What about the role of Pakistan in all this? There seems to a be a distrust of Pakistan here.

At this stage Pakistan is being put to the test because of US pressure. Afghanistan has been working with the US in terms of ensuring that infiltration from across the border is kept to a minimal.

The coalition forces that are operating in the eastern and southern parts of Afghanistan operate at times in close co-ordination with Pakistan, which has been obliged to set up a tripartite commission that includes the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Well, at least Pakistan has said they'd like to have stability in Afghanistan. General Pervez Musharraf is committed to strengthening this process and the Americans will keep the pressure on.

India would like to work with the Afghan authorities in humanitarian areas such as health, education, water supply, building of infrastructure like roads, power, and so on. At the same time we're also doing capacity building by training a large number of Afghans. We have English teachers working in various ministries and computer training classes in the Foreign Ministry to computerise their functions. In addition to the 3 to 4 year scholarships, we send 300 people every year for short training courses in bank management, small industries extension centres, software development, media and police functions.

Do you find the situation on the ground improving?

Yes. A year or two ago it was much worse.

How do you find life here with virtually no form of relaxation or entertainment?

There's lots to do. We have a small embassy here compared to the French, for example. They would need an embassy at least 10 times ours to be able to do the kind of work we are doing! We're administering something like $600 million worth ofassistance in Afghanistan and there are only two officers;I just have one councillor.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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