New Delhi April 14: Bangladesh shipping minister Shajahan Khan is visiting India for the national maritime summit inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today at a time New Delhi is aggressively trying to steal a lead over Beijing in developing Dhaka's strategically crucial port infrastructure.

Eleven top Bangladesh shipping officers, including the bosses of two critical ports India is eyeing, are accompanying Khan in Mumbai, the venue for the summit that the Modi government is touting as India's largest maritime conclave ever, senior officials have told The Telegraph.

India has made clear to Bangladesh that it wants to develop the Payra deep-sea port near Chittagong, a project China too has indicated it is interested in. But Bangladesh had only in February pushed China away from another port development project in Sonadia, near Cox's Bazar.

Bangladesh has also awarded the contract for another port near Cox's Bazar to Japan - like India, a strategic rival to China.

Simultaneously, India is developing a rail network connecting Mongla port in the Ganga delta to Khulna. Currently, the absence of any rail connectivity to Mongla port means the facility is used well below its potential by local and international maritime traders, Bangladeshi officials said.

The development of the ports and rail lines connecting them to major cities in Bangladesh represents an assertive push by India in its eastern neighbour's strategic infrastructure sector, an area where it had previously lagged behind China.

But it also points to the deepening race in India's neighbourhood with China and Japan, Asia's two biggest economic powerhouses, for influence.

"We are exploring the opportunity to set up a port in Bangladesh and further strengthen our ties," roads and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari had said here earlier this week, referring to Payra. "We have sent a committee to Bangladesh in this connection."

The foreign offices of India and Bangladesh have already held preliminary consultations on Payra, officials said. And a team led by a joint secretary from the shipping ministry is expected to visit Bangladesh next week, after the maritime summit.

Khan's visit for the maritime summit, and the bilateral meetings he is scheduled to hold on the margins, also come at a time India is trying to deepen its footprint in the Indian Ocean.

India has shed its past coyness in offering naval security equipment - including for military surveillance - to the Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. It is expanding a trilateral maritime security pact it has with Sri Lanka and the Maldives to include Mauritius and the Seychelles.

In March 2015, India had committed to developing air and transit connectivity on the remote Agalega Islands of Mauritius, and leased Assumption Island from the Seychelles.

And during a visit by Maldives President Abdulla Yameen on Monday, Modi promised to help develop two islands belonging to the country.

The Modi government has promised to assist East African nations like Mozambique and Tanzania develop their ocean economies - an offer it has also extended to Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal that the neighbours share.

Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina had last May agreed to set up a joint task force on maritime cooperation, and the panel of experts and officials from the two nations met last month in Dhaka.

"Maritime cooperation is an important new area for us to jointly focus on," Shahidul Haque, Bangladesh foreign secretary, had told this paperin response to a query during his visit here in February. "India has very advanced technology in the exploration, exploitation and preservation of maritime resources, and we want to learn through this cooperation."

In March, India and Bangladesh also signed a long-pending coastal shipping agreement that for the first time allows medium-size boats and ships to ferry goods directly between the nations. Till now, they had to be routed through Singapore because of the absence of a coastal shipping pact.

The detour to Singapore meant costs of shipping were more than twice what they need be.