NEW YORK - India has become a “major donor and new friend” to the government of post-Taliban Afghanistan, stirring concerns in neighbouring Pakistan, according to a media report Wednesday.

With a pledge of $1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal said India has become the fifth largest donor nation to the country after the US, Britain, Japan and Canada.

Pakistan does not rank in the top 10, WSJ correspondent Peter Wonacott pointed out in a dispatch from Kabul, headlined: “India Befriends Afghanistan, Irking Pakistan”.

Afghanistan is now the second-largest recipient of Indian aid after Bhutan, the Journal said.

From wells and toilets to power plants and satellite transmitters, India is seeding Afghanistan with a vast array of projects, it said.

The $1.2 billion pledged assistance includes projects both vital to Afghanistan’s economy, such as a completed road link to Iran’s border and the construction of a new parliament building in Kabul.

The Indian government is also paying to bring scores of bureaucrats to India, as it cultivates a new generation of Afghan officialdom, it said as it reveals the extent to which India is involved in Afghanistan.

“We are here for the same reason the US and others are here - to see a stable, democratic, multi-ethnic Afghanistan,” Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal as saying.

Pakistan has, however, said it was not worried about Indian assistance to Afghanistan, but wants adherence to a policy of non-interference. Pakistani leaders have accused India of interfering in Balochistan.

“We recognise that Afghanistan needs development assistance from every possible source to address the daunting challenges it is facing. We have no issue with that,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit was quoted as saying. “What Pakistan is looking for is strict adherence to the principle of non-interference,” he added.

Pakistan refused to allow overland shipment of fortified wheat biscuits from India to feed two million Afghan schoolchildren. India instead had to ship the biscuits through Iran, driving up costs for the programme. The World Food Programme, which administers the shipments, said the Pakistan government gave its approval for overland shipment in 2008 - six years after the first delivery.

“Why did it take six years … is something that WFP cannot answer,” a spokesman for the aid organisation said, adding, “however, we are indeed thankful to the government of Pakistan for allowing transit for the fortified biscuits”.

Basit, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not respond to a question about the Indian food assistance, wrote The Wall Street Journal.

Despite backing the Taliban in the past, Pakistan does not want to see an anarchic Afghanistan, the Paper said, citing Pakistani security analysts. “Pakistan is doing nothing to thwart the elections in Afghanistan and everything to help Afghanistan stabilise and have a truly representative government,” Gen Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and former army chief, was quoted as saying.

India’s aid has extended well beyond physical infrastructure to the training of accountants and economists, the Wall street Journal said.

Some believe there is room for cooperation between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan since both countries share an abiding interest in its stability. “The opportunity is there,” says Gen Karamat, “if we can get out of the straitjacket of the past.”

-Source: The Nation-