Over a decade after India closed down its field hospital in Tajikistan’s Farkhor air base, Indian doctors will be returning to the region to set up a new hospital at a crucial juncture, just as across the Central Asian nation’s border, Afghanistan is going through a transition period.
The move follows the official declaration issued by New Delhi and Dushanbe during the visit of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon who arrived on his fifth state visit to India. “(The two countries)have agreed to set up an India-Tajik Friendship Hospital in Tajikistan,” it said.
Earlier, a secret field hospital was being run by the Indian military at the Farkhar airbase to provide support to the Northern Alliance troops. And it was at this clinic that NA leader Ahmed Shah Massoud was brought for treatment after he was badly injured in a suicide attack.
But with the fall of Kabul’s Taliban-led Government in 2001 following the intervention of US troops, the field hospital was closed. However, plans to ensure an Indian presence in the region were revived last year as the Central Asian region attained further strategic importance for New Delhi’s defence planners.
According to sources, the hospital will not be located inside the base, but will function at an undisclosed location in southern Tajikistan. It was also revealed that the hospital will administer medical aid to both military and civilian patients.
Defence sources added that the Army was ready to deploy its personnel to open the hospital at the earliest.
Meanwhile, the desire to take the bilateral ties to the next level was indicated by the visiting Kazakh leader and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “President Rahmon and I agreed that in view of the broad progress made in our bilateral relations, particularly in defence and security cooperation, we should elevate our relations to a ‘strategic partnership,” the PM said in a statement following formal discussions held at the Hyderabad House here. A strategic partnership, usually entails a more prescribed regular interaction between countries at various levels, including annual summits-level meetings. Incidentally, New Delhi has been maintaining the Gissar aerodrome in Tajikistan which it had upgraded and modernised in 2010.
Manmohan also announced that India had offered to set up a slew of new projects in Tajikistan -- an IT Centre of excellence, an e-network including tele-education and tele-medicine, medical centres, language laboratories, a fruit and vegetable processing plant and an Entrepreneurship Development Institute, as well as the supply of agricultural machinery.
Besides, New Delhi has decided to enhance the number of training slots under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation training programme from 100 to 150 slots annually, which includes training of military personnel too.