The Hindu : To the North-East through Myanmar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 28, 2002

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To the North-East through Myanmar

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Nov. 27. In a significant bid to expand India's access to the remote northeastern provinces, New Delhi and Yangon are ready to begin feasibility studies on building a transport corridor through Myanmar. Yes, there could soon be commercial traffic moving from Kolkata to Mizoram via Myanmar.

Given the reluctance of Bangladesh to allow the movement of Indian goods across its territory, India has been exploring the option of developing connections to the North-East through Myanmar. Bangladesh's loss of revenue from a lucrative transit trade could soon be Myanmar's gain.

The Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, is in Myanmar this week for annual foreign office consultations with the military Government in Yangon. The two sides would also review the progress in the project along the mighty Kaladan river that runs through Mizoram and Myanmar before disgorging itself into the Bay of Bengal.

At present, all Indian commerce to the North-East skirts the long border with Bangladesh and travels through the narrow Siliguri corridor in northern West Bengal. The new transport corridor through Myanmar offers a cheaper and quicker alternative.

Nearly six decades ago, during the Second World War, American engineers built the Stillwell Road between British India and South Western China through Myanmar, then called Burma, to facilitate supplies to Chinese nationalists fighting the Imperial Japanese Army. Now India is developing the transport infrastructure of Myanmar to improve the economic prospects of the North-East.

The project involves upgrading the port facilities at Sittwe, where the Kaladan joins the Bay of Bengal. Sittwe is about 250 km from the border between Mizoram and Myanmar. Goods from Kolkata and other Indian ports will be able to use Sittwe to reach Mizoram and other northeastern provinces once India improves the Kaladan waterway and builds a modern road.

There are also plans to construct a natural gas pipeline along the Kaladan river. Officials from the two countries have already done initial surveys. Myanmar's coastline is believed to be rich in hydrocarbon resources. Indian companies are also expected to start drilling operations off the Rakhine coast of Myanmar for hydrocarbons early next year.

Agencies of the two Governments have completed a detailed project report on the transport corridor. Given the extraordinary strategic significance of the project, the Foreign Office is keen to get the project moving at a pace faster than what the Indian Government is known for.

The Kaladan project could emerge as the showpiece of rapidly expanding relations between New Delhi and Yangon. Given its role in improving the connectivity between the mainland and the North-East, the Kaladan scheme is likely to dramatically expand the weight of Myanmar in India's neighbourhood diplomacy.

India has begun to see Myanmar as a valuable gateway out of its near land-locked northeastern provinces and as a bridge to South-East Asia.

It has already built a road linking Moreh on the Indian side of the Manipur border with Kalemyo in central Myanmar.

In another project involving Bangkok, New Delhi and Yangon have agreed to develop a road from Moreh to Thailand through Myanmar. In this mutually-beneficial cooperation, India liberates the North-East from its geographic constraints and Myanmar gains by Indian investment in developing its infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the two countries are working together for effective border management and to tackle cross-border insurgency and narcotics trafficking.

Border trade has begun to grow and the two sides are looking at the possibility of opening additional points for commerce besides the current facility at Moreh.

India and Myanmar have also expanded diplomatic representation in each other's territory. Mr. Sibal is slated to formally inaugurate the new Indian Consulate at Mandalay. To the credit of the Foreign Office it has chosen a Burmese-speaking officer, Pramod Bhutiani, to head the consulate. Myanmar has re-established its own consulate in Kolkata.

The last few years have also seen increasing high-level political contacts between India and Myanmar and the steady injection of valuable economic content into the bilateral relations. But the Kaladan project, which India must now take up on a war footing, is in a class of its own.

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