New Delhi: In a significant development between India and Afghanistan, officials from the Taliban interim government in Kabul will be attending a four-day Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) training programme that will be conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, ABP Live has learnt.
India has been running the ITEC courses in Afghanistan since 2006 with the aim of training middle-level public officials of the Afghan government ministries, departments and semi-government organizations. In 2018, the Indian government increased the number of slots for Afghanistan from 500 to 625.
While the ITEC programme got stalled owing to the security situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban came back to power in August 2021, this is the first time the course will be attended by Taliban officials since they are now running the government there now, official sources told ABP Live.
The current ITEC course will run for four days and the Taliban authorities have told the Indian Embassy officials in Kabul that they are keen to attend the course so they can obtain certificates from this programme, the sources said.
The ITEC programme includes business management, mass communication, accounts, agriculture and rural development among others.
‘India’s Approach Towards Afghanistan Guided By Historical Friendship’
While India reopened its embassy in Kabul in June 2022, after shutting it down following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, New Delhi continues to prevent the entry of students from that country and the Narendra Modi government has revoked all valid visas and instead put in place a system of e-visas.
Students who were enrolled across various Indian universities after obtaining scholarships from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) were also not allowed entry into the country, and not even online courses were offered to them.
However, India has been sending humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to help Afghan citizens who are fighting a massive economic crisis with a complete collapse of the financial sector there. Since August 2021, India has supplied shipments of humanitarian assistance consisting of 40,000 MT of wheat, 55 tonnes of medicines, 500,000 doses of Covid vaccine and winter clothing.
"Post 15 August 2021, with changes in the political regime, India’s approach towards Afghanistan continues to be guided by its historical friendship," stated an annual report issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) last month.
The report also said: "In June 2022, an Indian team visited Kabul to oversee the delivery operations of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and met with the representatives of the International Organisations and relevant authorities involved in distribution of the assistance. Later, an Indian technical team was deployed in Kabul to monitor and coordinate India’s efforts to provide humanitarian assistance."
It added that due to the current political and security situation, the grant-in-aid projects in Afghanistan are on hold.
Some of the key Indian projects in Afghanistan are the new Parliament Building in Kabul (2015), and the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier known as Salma Dam (2016). Both countries jointly launched the 'New Development Partnership' in September 2017 to further enhance India’s development assistance to Afghanistan.
During the previous Ashraf Ghani government, India had also agreed to undertake the Shahtoot Dam project, which was proposed to provide drinking water to residents of Kabul besides rehabilitation of the existing irrigation and drainage network.