Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, who is on a four-day visit to Sri Lanka, visited the Jaffna Culture Center in the northern district of Jaffna and Trincomalee Oil Farms in Sri Lanka and announced that New Delhi will support the maintenance of the culture center for another five years. He is likely to meet President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday. 

India and Sri Lanka had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June 2014 for building the cultural center with Indian assistance as part of developing the social infrastructure for people of the Tamil-dominated Northern Province.

Speaking to reporters outside the newly built center, Shringla on Thursday said the decision to support the maintenance of the center was "in line with the discussion that took place between Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa" earlier this year.

The date for the inauguration of the center will be announced soon, he said. Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Wagley also accompanied him during the visit.

The center has a theatre-style auditorium with a capacity of up to 600 people, a multimedia library with online research facilities, an exhibition and gallery space, and a museum. “It would also be able to serve as a hub of socio-cultural activities, for which a conference hall-cum-seminar room is included,” reads the details of the project available on the website of the Consulate General of India,  Jaffna.

Shringla also visited Trincomalee Oil Farms, the symbol of the strategic-economic partnership between the two nations. The visit to the oil farms bears significance as the Sri Lanka government has reportedly been under pressure from trade unions to take back control of these oil farms that had been leased to India in an agreement signed in 2003.

Currently, only 15 out of the total 99 oil tanks are being used by Lanka IOC, a subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation in Sri Lanka, that operates retail petrol and diesel stations in the country in addition to Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. In 2017, both countries had signed an agreement for jointly developing the 84 upper oil tanks.
 
However, the controversy erupted earlier this year in February when the Sri Lankan energy minister announced that the Sri Lankan government would take back the control of these farms, and the Indian High Commission had agreed to the proposal.

Soon after it, the Indian High Commission issued a statement refuting reports that the deal between the two countries on Trincomalee Oil Farms was scrapped.

The issue is likely to come up for discussion during the ongoing visit of Shringla.

(SAM)