NEW DELHI: India is looking to expand cooperation with ASEAN countries in digital public infrastructure, telecommunications and power grid integration, with Ministry of External Affairs Secretary (East) Rudrendra Tandon highlighting India's technological capabilities and experience in developing large-scale infrastructure on Thursday.
Speaking during a special briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the Philippines, Tandon identified power grid integration as another potential area of collaboration and said that India had considerable experience in developing both physical infrastructure and the supporting systems required for integration on a large scale.
"In fact, there is another area which is, I think, very promising, and that is power grid integration, where we again have phenomenal experience both in designing hard infrastructure as well as soft infrastructure to execute integration at that scale," he said.
Tandon said India was looking to build partnerships with the entire ASEAN region through collaboration in emerging technologies, including digital public infrastructure and telecommunications. Cooperation in the digital space builds on the ASEAN-India Joint Statement on Advancing Digital Transformation and the ASEAN-India Fund for Digital Future, which focus on sharing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) governance, knowledge, and joint digital projects.
"One of the ideas we have to build this partnership with the entire ASEAN region is to collaborate on these important technologies: digital public infrastructure, telecom--we have now phenomenal capabilities, and we have our own proprietary technologies for 4G telecom," he said.
India's push aligns with its One Sun, One World, One Grid (OSOWOG) initiative, which seeks to connect Indian and Southeast Asian electricity grids to boost cross-border power trade and energy security. It also complements the ASEAN Power Grid (APG), which aims for fully integrated regional grid operations by 2045.
"All these are very relevant for ASEAN, whose main, let's say, raison d'être is to promote economic integration, for which they are looking at all these solutions," he added.
Addressing concerns over connectivity constraints, Tandon said that although there were limitations in land-based connectivity, alternative solutions through air and maritime routes were being pursued bilaterally and successfully. (ANI)