India and Bangladesh Tuesday resolved a long-standing border problem, signing a historic agreement on demarcation of land boundary. The agreement also resolves exchange of 162 adversely-held enclaves, but their failure to sign any deal on sharing of Teesta and Feni river waters cast a shadow on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh\'s maiden Dhaka visit. However, Singh who met his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, at Dhaka, capital city of Bangladesh, said the two countries had decided to continue discussions to reach \'a mutually acceptable, fair and amicable arrangement for the sharing of the Teesta and Feni river waters\'. Seeking to placate Dhaka, upset over the last-minute scrapping of the Teesta water-sharing pact, Singh announced a major trade sop allowing duty-free access with immediate effect to 61 items from Bangladesh to Indian market and permitting 24-hour access to Bangladeshis through Tin Bigha corridor, pti reported. Of the 61 items, 46 are textile products for which Bangladesh had sought access into the Indian market. Aware of Bangladesh\'s sensitivities over the failure to reach an interim agreement on Teesta, Singh said \'our common rivers need not be sources of discord, but can become the harbingers of prosperity to both our countries\'. The two sides were scheduled to sign an agreement on water sharing during Singh\'s two-day visit, but strong objections by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the draft of the agreement, led India to back off at the last minute. \'We have decided to continue discussions to reach a mutually acceptable, fair and amicable arrangement for the sharing of the Teesta and Feni river waters,\' Singh said. Earlier in the day, the failure of inking the Teesta deal betrayed the rough edges in Indo-Bangladesh relations when Indian High Commissioner to Dhaka Rajeev Mitter was summoned by Bangladesh Foreign Ministry who conveyed Dhaka\'s sense of deep disappointment and frustration. Under the agreement protocol on land boundary agreement signed by Foreign Ministers S M Krishna and Dipu Moni in the presence of the two Prime Ministers, the two countries demarcated the entire land boundary and resolved the status of enclaves and adversely possessed areas. India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km land boundary covering five states—West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram. The agreement on swap of 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves, where an approximately 51,000 people have been living for centuries, fulfills a vision laid out by the Indira-Mujib pact of 1974. Non-resolution of the enclaves had plagued the India-Bangladesh ties for decades and the agreement signed today was the most important event of Singh\'s visit. This is for the second time time since 1974 that India has agreed to give up some part of its territory to another country. India had earlier ceded the island of Kachhateevu to Sri Lanka. In all, the two countries signed ten agreements relating to a Framework of Agreement on Cooperation and Development signed by the two Prime Ministers, protocol on land boundary agreement, renewable energy and overland transit to Nepal. The other agreements which were inked were on preservation of the Sundarbands, conservation of Royal Bengal tiger, fisheries and livestock, audiovisual media, cooperation between Dhaka University and Jawaharlal Nehru University and Institutes of Fashion Technology in both the countries. In a statement to the media after the signing of the agreements, Singh described the deals as a \'new architecture for our partnership which will open new vistas of bilateral cooperation, strengthen regional cooperation within South Asia and set an example of good neighbourly relations\'. Singh said relations between India and Bangladesh enjoy \'our highest priority and there is a national consensus in India that India must develop the best possible relations with Bangladesh.\' Singh said he and Hasina and have had \'very wide-ranging and in-depth discussions which have built upon the momentum of the Bangladesh Prime Minister\'s historic visit to India in 2010.\' Conveying India\'s \'deep appreciation\' to Hasina for the cooperation rendered by Bangladesh in \'our joint fight against terrorism and insurgency\', Singh said \'this has brought much needed stability to both of us and to this region as a whole.\' \'India is a true and genuine partner of Bangladesh. We will do the utmost to build this relationship on a sustained basis, and I believe this also reflects the approach of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina\'s government.\' Later, addressing a banquet hosted in his honour by Hasina, Singh said \'our talks today and the agreements that have been signed represent a qualitative leap forward in our relations\'. \'We have found solutions to seemingly difficult problems which had defied solutions for years\', Singh said in an unspecified reference, apparently referring to the agreement on land boundary agreement. Singh commended the \'personal sacrifices\' made by Hasina and her \'belief in values of pluralism, democracy and human dignity which have earned you respect throughout the world\'. Singh also singled out Hasina for upholding the great legacy of \'your illustrious father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman\'. In her banquet speech, Hasina said \'throughout our discussions today, we have reached understanding in areas as diverse as demarcation of land boundary, sharing of waters of Teesta and Feni, connectivity, power, electronic media, education and conservation of common heritage of the Sunderbans.\' \'I firmly believe that our decisions today will have a far-reaching positive impact in the lives of our peoples and nations as well as in the region.\' \'Indeed, our discussions today were held, as among the best of friends, in an atmosphere of complete harmony of views and mutual respect\', Hasina said. Describing the Bangladesh-India relationship now at a \'historical juncture\' she said, the enthusiastic response to joint celebrations of 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore in the two countries demonstrated connectivity of minds, cultures and philosophies between our peoples\'. Meanwhile, at a late night media briefing, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai described the land boundary agreement as \'the biggest takeaway\' from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh\'s visit to Bangladesh. He said India and Bangladesh share the longest boundary in the world--4,096km spanning across five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram. Mathai said the completion of the land boundary demarcation is the logical conclusion of a chapter that had begun in 1974. \'We brought to a close the chapter that had begun in 1974 and we could achieve this because of the concerned state governments\' cooperation\' in demarcating the boundary, he said. The Foreign Secretary said India is taking steps to address Bangladesh\'s concern over the balance of bilateral trade heavily in favour of India and one of the ways to do that is to attract Indian investment in Bangladesh. Mathai said there was no discussion on Teesta or Feni water sharing today during delegation-level talks between the two countries. Asked why India and Bangladesh could not exchange letters of intent on allowing India to use the Bangladeshi deep sea ports of Chittagong and Mongla, he said \'certain things still need to be straightened out and one more round of discussion is necessary\'.