Chinese Maung Aye sells Kaladan to Kalars
- From: Zo Khup <ginpyankhup@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:56:08 -0700 (PDT)
India, Myanmar quietly finalise Kaladan project
2 Nov, 2007,
0000 hrs IST,
Nirmala Ganapathy,
TNN
NEW DELHI: India and Myanmar have quietly finalised the $100-million
Kaladan multi-modal link project, which will provide much-needed
transit access between the north-eastern states and the rest of the
country. Sources said all the required agreements have been finalised
and the detailed project report approved. The financial approval has
also come through and the project is now pending Cabinet approval for
the various agreements. The plan is to start by next year.
The construction on the Kaladan project would have started earlier,
but the crisis in Myanmar necessitated a slowdown. The project had
been finalised by both India and Myanmar a couple of weeks ago after
petroleum minister Murli Deora's visit to Myanmar during the height of
the stand-off between pro-democracy supporters and the military junta,
sources added. It had been put in cold storage temporarily even as
international pressure increased on India to intervene and push the
military junta towards democratic reforms.
Through the crisis, New Delhi, which had ultimately promised to push
the junta towards democracy, is doing a fine balance between
safeguarding strategic ties with Myanmar and its credentials as a
supporter of democratic principles. Officials argue that India has
high stakes in Myanmar, while countries like the US, which have been
highly critical of the junta and are pushing sanctions, have little
stakes in the country.
The crisis in Myanmar is far from resolved with UN special envoy to
Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari, who visited New Delhi and met Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, is scheduled to go to Myanmar on Saturday to push the
junta into taking steps to address human rights concerns and start a
dialogue with detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Under these circumstances, New Delhi wants to keep the project under
wraps for now. The ambitious project includes the building of a
waterway, roads and developing the Sitwe port linking Myanmar to
Mizoram through the Kaladan river.
In fact, the agreements that have been negotiated include the
framework agreement on the construction and operation of a multi-modal
transit transport facility, protocol on facilitation of transit
transport, protocol on financial arrangements and draft protocol on
joint administration and management.
The project will provide an alternative route for transporting goods
to and from the North-east. India has been seeking transit rights from
Bangladesh also, but successive Bangladeshi governments have
repeatedly stonewalled the request. Dhaka fears that giving transit
facilities to India would affect its own exports to the north-east
regions.
The issue of obtaining transit facilities through India's neighbours
was discussed at a meeting on the Look East Policy chaired by external
affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and attended by chief ministers of
all the north-eastern states, except Sikkim.
Minister of development of the north-eastern region Mani Shankar
Aiyar, who prepared the concept paper in the run-up to the meeting,
home minister Shivraj Patil, defence minister A K Anthony, finance
minister P Chidambaram and shipping, road transport and highways T R
Baalu also attended the meeting.
"Our desire to co-operate with neighbouring countries to enable more
efficient transit stands firm, and we would be making all efforts to
ensure that our objectives are achieved as quickly as possible," Mr
Mukherjee said at the meeting.
.
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