The Indian Weekender, Friday 8 July 2022

2
NEW ZEALAND
Friday, July 08, 2022
Read online www.iwk.co.nz
‘I’m going back with a
DEV NADKARNI
Shri Muktesh Pardeshi, India’s High
Commissioner to New Zealand over
the past three years leaves for India
next week at the completion of his threeyear
term. Shri Pardeshi has been among the
more approachable, friendly and popular High
Commissioners that has represented India in the
past couple of decades.
In his three-year stint, he saw through
the completion of the new Chancery
building in Wellington and
led his efficient team to
successfully navigate the
range of challenges that
the pandemic raised
across a major part of
his tenure. In his last
week in office, Shri
Pardeshi talked to
Indian Weekender’s
Dev Nadkarni about
his time in NZ and
the future of India-NZ
relations.
On the new Indian
Chancery building:
This has been
in the making
since 2009. We
procured this
plot of land in
2009 and the
construction
started in 2016.
Unfortunately,
the construction company which was building it went
into receivership in August 2018. That complicated
the matter. So the whole project was kind of
abandoned for a year. When I arrived in July 2019,
one of the foremost task before me was to restart
the building, which commenced soon. And I’m happy
that in spite of all the challenges that we faced,
during the course of last two-and-a-half years in the
form of Covid-19, we have stood resilient, we faced
all these challenges. And finally we have a beautiful
product.
In the seven decades of our diplomatic relationship
with NZ, I think the construction of this building is
an important marker in our relationship. We started
in a modest manner in 1950 by setting up a trade
commission in NZ.
Within two years, this was upgraded to the level
of High Commission. But all these years we operated
from leased accommodations, which had limitations
on the activities. Now with this building that phase
is over, it shows there is abiding interest in NZ, we
have deep commitment to the welfare of our people,
people of Indian origin, who are now a significant
chunk of the population here. So with this building, a
dream has been fulfilled, to take our relationship with
NZ to a higher level.
On his three-year tenure in NZ:
The construction and completion of this building, I
would rate as one of the most visible achievements of
the last three years. In spite of Covid-19 challenges,
we could do significant things in terms of diplomatic
contacts. Some of our meetings were held virtually.
But the leadership of the two countries kept in
constant contact, led principally by the foreign
ministers of India, and NZ.
They have in the last six months met twice,
physically as well, once in Paris, and only last
month they met in Rwanda, on the side line
Commonwealth Summit. So there has been
desire to keep up with the pace of political
between the two sides.
So far as business interests are concer
could not have a participation in expositio
what we did with the help of several cham
commerce, and the India NZ Business Counc
Auckland, and Wellington, we had a series of w
and virtual buyer sellers meet.
The last three years also provided a
challenge. And when we had the outbreak of C
2020 onwards, we had 1000s of people stu
one of the one of the principal tasks before
days was to take them to India, and their flig
close they were no way to take them to Indi
ran what is called Vande Bharat – Air India ev
thousands of people from here, those flig
brought in New Zealanders who were stuck
So, these are some of the significant achie
or I would say our responses to challenges.
On how the new building will help in taking
NZ-India relations to the next level:
There are three aspects to it: First is
Internal management of the High Com
the way we sit in this building and
that becomes robust, and we become i
more efficient, space wise, and also f
wise. So that’s an achievement for the
management of the team.
The external dimension is the building is
provide services to the people. We serve th
of people a year in terms of visa, OCI cards, p
restoration of birth visitation of deaths,
people for them, we can we can receive th
more comfortable and spacious setup.
In terms of provision of services to the