India, Myanmar quietly finalise Kaladan project

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.