Mauritius
India has close, longstanding relations with Mauritius, an island nation in the Western Indian Ocean, owing to historic, demographic, and cultural reasons. A key reason for the special ties is the fact that Indian origin people comprise nearly 70% of the island’s population of 1.2 million.
Cooperation to tackle the challenge of COVID-19 Pandemic
- On Mauritius’ request, India supplied 13 tonnes of medicines (including 0.5 million tablets of HCQ), 10 tonnes of Ayurvedic medicines and an Indian rapid response medical team to help combat COVID in April-May 2020.
- India was also the first country to supply COVID-19 vaccines to Mauritius, with 1 lakh doses of Covishield vaccines gifted to Mauritius on 22 January 2021. Subsequently, India supplied an additional 1 lakh dose of Covishield and 2 lakh doses of COVAXIN on commercial basis. A ten-member Indian medical team visited Mauritius in March 2022 to share best practices in COVID management.
Capacity Building & Other Exchanges
- A MoU on Community Development Projects was signed in January 2022 to undertake around 100 small, people-oriented projects in Mauritius.
- Other completed India-assisted projects, include the Upadhyay Training Centre, the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, the Subramania Bharati Eye Centre, the Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre, the Swami Vivekananda International Conference Centre and the World Hindi Secretariat.
- Other institutions built with India’s assistance: The Mahatma Gandhi Institute (MGI) was established in 1976 as a joint venture between India and Mauritius for promoting Indian culture. It also hosts the ICCR Chairs in Sanskrit & Indian Philosophy and Hindi. The Rabindranath Tagore Institute (RTI) was established with Indian assistance in 2000 as a Centre of Studies on Indian culture and traditions.
- Mauritius hosts the World Hindi Secretariat, an India-Mauritius bilateral organization which was constructed with Indian funding and inaugurated in March 2018.
- Mauritius is one of the largest beneficiaries of the ITEC programme and receives about 400 training slots every year for various courses.
- Under ICCR’s Africa Scholarship Scheme, 65 scholarships slots are extended annually to Mauritian students for higher education in India. About 200 Mauritian students enrol themselves in Indian Universities every year on a self-financing basis. Since 2020, India has also started offering scholarships to Mauritians under the e-Vidya Bharti Arogya Bharti (e-VBAB) distance learning project, with about 86, 192 and 250 enrolments for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 sessions respectively.
Development Cooperation (Grants/ LoCs/ Assistance)
- In May 2016, India provided a grant of US$ 353 million to Mauritius as a Special Economic Package for five priority projects, all of which have been completed: (i) Metro Express Project; (ii) Supreme Court Building; (iii) New ENT Hospital; (iv) Social Housing project; (v) Digital Tablets for school children.
- India extended a USD 500 million Line of Credits (LoC) in 2017 to Mauritius to finance social/infrastructure projects. In October 2021, a LoC of USD 190 million and USD 10 million grant was approved by India for Phase III of the metro project. In August 2022, another LoC worth USD 300 million and a grant of USD 25 million was announced for Phase IV extension of the Metro.
- In the wake of a massive oil spill following the grounding of the Japanese vessel Wakashio off the Mauritian coast on July 25, 2020, India was the first responder. An IAF aircraft brought 30 tonnes of technical equipment, material and a 10-member technical response team on August 16, 2020. INS Nireekshak joined the Mauritian National Coast Guard (NCG) in salvaging the Mauritian Tug ‘Sir Gaetan Duval’, which sunk following an accidental collision during the Wakashio salvage operations.
- India is also in the process of providing a renovated Renal Transplant unit to Mauritius under a US$ 10 mn project, which is expected to be complete by October 2024.
- A MediClinic amounting to US$ 2.75 mn is being built at Grand Bois, which has already completed 40% physical progress and is expected to be complete by February 2024. In addition, two Area Health Centres are also being built in New Grove and Cap Malheureax for a combined amount of US$ 5.05 mn and are expected to be complete by September 2024.
