These measures, India hopes, will help the cause of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) and the “reciprocal transit rights” among the SAARC nations.

The SRMTs, which already identified 10 regional road corridors, five regional rail corridors besides 16 aviation gateways and 10 maritime gateways already came up for discussions at the second SAFTA Ministerial Council meeting in February this year.

The study, which was undertaken at the Islamabad summit in 2004, had recommended that SAARC member states required to “resolve the identified and non-identified physical barriers in order to put in place a SAARC Regional Multi-Modal Transport System. The study also pointed out that the South Asia has inherited an “integrated transport infrastructure” from the British, which was fractured not only because of the partition but also due to the political aftermath of it, and needs to be rebuilt.

The proposal for a regional telemedicine network, which India proposed during the last summit in Dhaka, has entered an advanced stage with the modalities for starting a pilot project having been finalised. Also, the internal governmental agreement for establishing a Food Bank has been finalised along with the proposal of a SAARC museum of textiles and handicrafts ahead of the summit.