The future of the treaty came into question after the fall of Vajpayee government, but officials maintained that the collapse of the government did not necessarily sound the death knell of the treaty as it had a bi-partisan consensus in India.

However, now with the declaration of fresh elections the negotiations being held here to narrow down the differences over Indian items, including tea and rubber, in the negative list of imports, would begin only after the installation of the new government in New Delhi, they said.

The events have also cast a shadow on the first ever meeting of the officials of the seven member SAARC nations to form a South Asian tea council to jointly market tea.

Tea officials of India, SriLanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and Maldives were scheduled to meet in Colombo between May 5 and 7. The meeting may have to postponed in view of declaration of new elections in India, officials of the tea promotion bureau said here today.

"We are trying to contact, S S Ahuja, chairman of the Indian tea board to ask whether we could go ahead with the meeting," they said.

The treaty was signed last December by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga.

The treaty was signed primarily to provide duty free access to Sri Lankan goods in the Indian markets which would in turn help Sri Lanka to bridge the 500 million trade gap. But it ran into trouble after India included tea and rubber in the negative list of imports.

Sri Lanka objected to the exclusion of two items from duty free list saying that it has very little to export to India other than those items.

Following the differences, the two countries began fresh round of negotiations duringwhich India has proposed to permit duty free access to fixed quotas of tea and garments.

Though both the governments had maintained that the differences were narrowed down, a decision on the future of the treaty could be taken only after take over of the new government in India, the officials said.