Thaindian News

Islamabad, April 22 (IANS) India’s offer to sell electricity to Pakistan at an affordable rate is “intriguing”, said a Pakistani daily, noting that New Delhi is not without its own power problems.

The India proposal will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the commerce secretaries of the two countries, Pakistan’s Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood had said.

An editorial in the News International Friday said the Indian offer “is intriguing but unlikely ever to come to much beyond being an interesting ‘blip’ on the rocky diplomatic road that connects us.

“India is not without its own power problems, one of them being that it, like us, under-generates against installed provision. Which leads us to wonder why or how they can afford to sell cheap electricity to their historical rival.

“Notwithstanding what at first sight appears to be a slightly odd proposal, it may have merit in that it keeps us talking to one another about a mutually beneficial subject - trade.”

Noting that there was now “a real sense that there is a thaw in the air, with some of the frost in our relations beginning to disappear”, it said: “The warmth producing this welcome phenomenon is probably part of the fallout of the Mohali meeting.”

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had met his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Mohali during the semifinal India-Pakistan cricket World Cup match.

The editorial said: “We are about to resume meetings between our commerce secretaries 27-28 April and the commerce secretary has said that talks are ‘heading in a cordial way’. Let us hope so, and if by some remote chance we can do a deal on electricity - we should.”

It went on to say that “we could gain much from a development of our trading relationship with India”.

“Trading intangibles, the nods and winks and handshakes that go behind every more tangible deal we do internationally, is putting power in the wires. Whether it can be put there quickly enough to prevent economic meltdown is, however, a moot point.”