Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain said on Saturday the interim government wants to see strong people-to-people ties with India.
"It's possible to ease public dissatisfaction towards India. I think we really need to take correct bilateral steps to address this," said Hossain.
He said the 'golden chapter' of Bangladesh-India relations was reportedly at the level of the government, but it has not been felt by the general people.
"I really want to see genuine people-to-people relation. The people should feel that there is an opportunity for actual good relations between Bangladesh and India, but unfortunately, this is one aspect in which it has not," he said.
He blamed the Indian media for blowing up balloon stories after the student-people revolution.
On regional cooperation, Hossain said that there was a hope the BIMSTEC could act as an alternative to SAARC.
However, he pointed out that BIMSTEC cannot become fully effective until peace is restored in Myanmar.
He said that Bangladesh does not wish to see BIMSTEC replace SAARC at least for now.
Hossain said Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus was also interested in making SAARC a regional forum alive.
SAARC has been very ineffective since 2016; biennial summits haven't been taking place since the last one in Kathmandu in 2014.
The 2016 SAARC Summit was to be held in Islamabad. Shortly before the event, India announced its withdrawal from the event, citing inability to participate in the summit due to "prevailing circumstances" after the terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 that year.
After Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan also refused to join the meeting in Islamabad, the summit was finally called off.
The regional group includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
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