Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to undertake his first overseas bilateral visits in the last week of March, with a trip to Sri Lanka and Mauritius.

"The specific dates for the prime minister's visit to Sri Lanka and Mauritius are being worked out. They will be finalised by the first week of March," a senior official said.

"As of now, he is expected to visit the two countries in the last week of March," the official told IANS.

Manmohan Singh will be the first Indian prime minister in 18 years to make a bilateral visit to Sri Lanka.

Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had visited Colombo in July 1987 when he got butted by a Sri Lankan naval rating protesting the newly signed India-Sri Lanka peace pact.

Manmohan Singh was scheduled to visit Mauritius in December, but the trip was cancelled. All his previous overseas visits as prime minister - to Thailand, Laos, the United Nations and the Netherlands - were multilateral engagements.

Although both Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have invited Manmohan Singh and the invitation has been accepted, Manmohan Singh is in no hurry to undertake the trip.

Informed sources said even though Islamabad was keen on a Manmohan Singh visit in March or April, he was not going to make his first bilateral journey to Pakistan.

Other visits being worked out this year are to Australia, Brazil - which will mark the first prime ministerial visit to Latin America in a long while - and Russia.

A prime minister who, unlike his predecessor, is not keen on foreign visits, is being goaded into undertaking some trips to "fulfil international commitments in keeping with India's growing global status", said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.