Mission heads meet Gujarat govt, ask serious questions, get formal replies

By Japan K Pathak
Delhi/Ahmedabad, DeshGujarat

During an interactive session of Head of Missions(Indian ambassadors and High Commissioners in various countries worldwide) with Gujarat government in Delhi, many ambassadors expressed their grievances with Gujarat government. The interactive session was held in presence of Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, but it was entirely conducted and participated by two top decision maker IAS officers K.Kailashnathan and DJ Pandian. Replies from both these officers were just formal, without any tone of strong result oriented approach.

UAE ambassador raised an issue of a “significant port related investment running into some difficulties in Gujarat.”

He said, “because it is high profile case, a lot of other prospective investment has been held up not only to Gujarat but rest of India.”

He sought earlier solution of “this important problem.”

In reply, K Kailashnathan said, “we are aware of this problem. It’s more of a legal problem in concession agreement. It is in High Court. We will like to solve it and remove the block as far as UAE investment to Gujarat is concerned.”

Indian envoy from Argentina said, the country had signed four agreement with Gujarat in the areas including research in water management and agriculture, but follow up visit(from Gujarat side) is due.

In reply, Chief Secretary DJ Pandian said, “We will decide. We will send the delegation at least. We are working working it out. We will work on it.”

India’s envoy to Indonesia Mr. Singh stood up and said, “festival of India is going on in Indonesia at present and first performance is Gujarati Garba from Jamnagar which is very popular there. Indonesian sweet factory in Gujarat is doing well and they are happy.”

He further said, “In 2011, an MoU(memorandum of understanding) was signed by Pipavav Port with a ship building company in Indonesia. Nothing has moved on that.”

He also made a proposal, if Gujarat a city other than capital city willing to have a sister city relationship with an Indonesian city that would open up further possibilities.

In reply to Indonesian envoy’s representation, Gujarat Chief Secretary said, “thank you.”

He then quickly asked Indian envoy to Slovenia to speak.

Slovenian ambassador said there’s a small city in Slovenia and Mahatma Gandhi’s statue has been provided there by Government of India.People in Slovenia have great regards for Bapuji and Gujarat.

He then proposed sister city relationship between a city in Slovenia and Porbandar in Gujarat which is the birth place of Mahatma Gandhi. He also said that there’s a festival of Indian cinema which has been titled as ‘from Sabarmati to Sava’. While Sabarmati is a river in Gujarat, Sava river is part of Slovenia.

In reference to proposed film festival he said, “we didn’t find Gujarati cinema to show case. Would that be possible to have Gujarati cinema in digital cinema projection form?”

Pandian taking this question regarding soft diplomacy lightly randomly replied, “Gujarati cinema? We will send all the cinema”. He then smiled.

Envoy to Slovenia further pointed out, “we want Ketan Mehta film”.

There was no further response from Pandian as he called envoy to Hungary to speak.

Indian envoy to Hungary in his query asked, “we were informed that investment delegation from Gujarat was visiting some countries in Europe including my country(Hungary), but it so happened at last minute it was not deferred and we were informed that it will happen in latter day. But now year has passed(and Gujarat delegation has not turned up).”

He further said, “these kind of FDI(foreign direct investment) delegations are important but cancelling such delegation visit becomes very counter productive and it should not happen again.”

To this Pandian in his reply said Hungarian envoy to India is very active and in contact, and such mistake will not happen in future.

Chief Secretary Pandian was seen fully involved only while replying a question to Indian envoy to Iceland, that is because the issue was bout Geo-thermal energy. It should be noted that Pandian was at the helm of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation(GSPC) for years before he was elevated to the post of Chief Secretary recently.

Contrary to past experience when Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister would select to interact directly in such gathering, the present Chief Minister was mute spectator throughout the session, while Pandian and Kailashnathan were replying and reacting to all the questions. Later the Chief Minister read out her speech.

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