Alwaqht_ India with more than two billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan over the last 14 years, after the US, UK, Japan and Germany is the fifth largest donor to Afghanistan and has been significantly present in political, economic, educational and social areas of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's new Parliament building in the west of Kabul is now being built with funding from India whose cost is estimated to be more than $ 250 million.
India, as one of traditional aid donors to Afghanistan has so far helped the central government in the fields of education, infrastructure, security, agriculture, health, governance and social support.
The country has tried to be present in the remotest and most insecure areas of Afghanistan. Since 2007, Delhi has funded $ 20 million in 88 border districts, 12 provinces, and more than 167 reconstruction projects.
In 2013, India aided $ 100 million for the implementation of development projects across Afghanistan which included building a cricket stadium in Kandahar.
In addition, India has spent about 85 million dollars to build the 218 km length Zaranj road from the Iranian border to Delaram in Kandahar province. A road for every Kilometer of which, according to Afghan officials, a security guard was killed.
To complete the project, and provide open-water navigation for Afghanistan, India has plans to invest in Iran's Chabahar port to provide alternative routes to Pakistani ports.
Besides road construction, India has covered the cost of building power transmission lines from the town of Pul-e Khumri in Baghlan Province in northern Afghanistan to Kabul, the capital.
India has built a power distribution station in Chamtalah, in Kabul province, Pul-e Khumri and Doshi in Baghlan province and Charikar in Parwan province.
The largest reconstruction project funded by India is Salma dam on Harirud River in Herat province which is currently being completed by the country with a funding of almost $ 70 million.
Most Indian projects in Afghanistan are facing security challenges. Salma hydroelectric dam has been repeatedly targeted by armed attacks; security officials also reported that they had foiled a plot to destroy the dam.
With the completion of the project, Herat and its neighboring provinces will be provided with more than 42 megawatts of electricity, which will meet their needs for electricity, and more than 200 thousand acres of land from Harirud to the Iranian border in Zulfiqar region will be under irrigation.
In addition, India has helped Afghanistan in health care, and has undertaken to build the Indira Gandhi Hospital in Kabul.
Further, facilities provided by India for the visa, encourage the Afghans to travel to the country for receiving health care services. According to the relevant organizations, of 300 Afghans who get a visa for India, 70 percent travel to India for medical treatment.
Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the surveys showed that the least cost to treat patients who have traveled outside the country is estimated at two thousand dollars a day.
Education is also one of the major parts in which India has made a great investment in recent years. It has awarded around 675 scholarships to Afghan students who are educated in various fields. Of 15 thousand Afghan students studying outside the country, five thousand live in India.
The tallest Afghan flag now flying in central Kabul, was donated by the government of India and the Indian Foreign Minister who raised it with Hamid Karzai, former President of Afghanistan, on Bibi Mahro hill, in Wazir Akbar Khan area of Kabul.
However, Pakistan, the neighboring country and regional rival to India, is unhappy with India's strong presence in Afghanistan and believes it is a threat to Pakistan security. Indian development projects in Afghanistan have been repeatedly targeted by insurgents; and its political representations, including Indian Embassy in Kabul were attacked by suicide bombers.
Pakistani officials have criticized the presence of Indian embassies in Kandahar, Khost and Nangarhar provinces bordering with Pakistan, and accused India of using Afghan land to spur separatist Baluch, an allegation that India has repeatedly rejected.
