64 children receive Christmas gifts from Santa Claus couple
Over 64 children in the Christian – dominated Mizoram state still believe in Santa Claus visiting them on December 24…
The people in the North-east, particularly in landlocked Mizoram, are patiently waiting for early completion of the riverine and roadway plan called the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project. When completed this will connect Mizoram (and also Guwahati) to the Myanmarese port of Sittwe in Arakan, also known as Rakhine. According to the Myanmar Port Authority, work is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Work started in December 2010 following the signing of a contract between India and Myanmar. It envisages the improvement of the Sittwe deep seaport, construction of an inland waterway on the Kaladan river and a highway connecting Mizoram’s state capital of Aizawl.
The Kaladan river actually originates in central Mizoram and is known as Chhimtuipui. It enters Myanmar, crosses Chin and Arakan provinces and finally flows into the Bay of Bengal. Both the provinces, located in the western part of Myanmar, are said to be the least-developed.
The feasibility study, carried out in 1999-2000, revealed that the Kaladan river is navigable from its confluence point at Sittwe to Paletwa. After that the river is shallow and because of sharp curves navigation is not feasible. So a highway was proposed from Paletwa to the Indian border point of Mizoram.
Once the US $480 million project becomes operational, ships will call at Sittwe port. From there the goods will be transported via the Kaladan river. From the Myanmarese town of Paletwa, these will be transported by roads, crossing India through the Lomasu trade point in the southern Mizoram border.
The project was conceived by New Delhi a decade ago and formalised in 2008 under its Look East Policy (now Act East Policy), primarily to develop trade with Myanmar and other South-east Asian nations.
Political observers believe that India was compelled to invest on the project, its largest development initiative in Myanmar, to woo the Naypyidaw (capital of Myanmar) adminis-tration when it was in the process of transfor-ming from one of a full-military regime to a quasi-democratic government.
Moreover, India realised that once the trade route is ready it will be able to strenghten its economic linkages with other Asian countries with a population of 60 million. The landlocked North-east stands to gain immensely. Besides trade, the project is aimed at expanding Indian economic and political influence in south and eastern Asia.
Though the Kaladan project is a bilateral initiative between New Delhi and Naypyidaw, the Indian government is financing the entire project. The former military government provided the required land and security, but was reluctant to invest. So New Delhi offered then military regime a soft loan of US $10 million.
According to the Union Ministry for Development of North-eastern Region, the Kaladan project is being implemented by various agencies like the Indian Inland Waterways Authority under the Indian foreign ministry for the portion inside Myanmar, and the Mizoram Public Works Department(road transport and highways) for the portion in India.
Piloted and funded by the Union external affairs ministry, the project is hailed as strate-gically significant because it supposedly takes the pressure off the sole route connecting the Indian mainland with the North-east by a narrow strip in upper North Bengal, also known as the “Chicken Neck”. The Rail and Technical and Economic Services carried out the preliminary feasibility studies.
After the project is ready it will be handed over to the Myanmar authority. “The objective of the proposal is to provide an access route to the land-locked North-eastern region of India. The project is significant in view of severe pressure on the Siliguri corridor and Bangladesh’s continued intransigence in providing us transit rights through its territory to the North-east,” stated a release by the DoNER ministry.
The dredging and widening of the Kaladan river from Sittwe port to Paletwa of Chin province, which is adjacent to Mizoram, has been completed. The 160km inland waterway transport system for cargo ships with a terminal at Paletwa (also known as Kaletwa or Setpyitpyin) was completed a few months ago.
The 62km-long two-lane highway from Paletwa to the Indian border point of Lomasu is also ready, so is the Indian part of the two-lane highway. The 100km stretch (from Lomasu to Lawngtlai in Mizoram) will connect with the Indian National Highway 54.
But not all seems to be happy with the project. Some Indian and also Burmese organisations allege that the project will affect thousands of residents in both the countries. Kaladin Movement activists have alleged that the authortiies concerned have not told the indigenous people about the environmental risks.
The Kaladan Movement is an alliance of civil-society organisations concerned about human rights, social, economic and environmental impacts of the Kaladan project on local residents — it has three core member-organisations, namely the Arakan Rivers Network, Chin Human Rights Organisation and Zo Indigenous Forum.
The alliance wants an assurance from both the Myanmar and Indian governments that the benefits accruing from the project should go to the least-advantaged members of the local communities.
In a report titled “One cannot step into the same river twice: Making the Kaladan project people-centred”, prepared by the Kaladin Movement, it identifies six major negative impacts experienced by the locals along the Kaladan project route. They are lack of consul-tation, lack of information and transparency, labour discrimination, land confiscation and forced relocation, threats to local cultural heritage and ecological destruction.
It goes on to say that “the Kaladan Movement believes that the people living along the route should be the main beneficiaries of the large-scale infrastructure development. Under no circumstances is it acceptable for human rights violations to be perpetrated during the imple-mentation of the project.”
The CHRO has even demanded that unless the essential elements of full transparency, public consultation and participation, and account-ability are met, the Kaladan project should not be made operational.
It has also criticised increased military activities on the route. It said that the Burmese Army has a long history of forcing villagers to build roads and even work on government farmlands without any remuneration.
The report also says that the terrestrial environment surrounding the Kaladan project route is part of the “Burma Coastal Rain Forests” eco-region, characterised by low-land evergreen and semi-evergreen rain forests on the western side of the Arakan Yoma. This is known as one of the most species-rich eco-regions in Burma, which has been supporting many threatened and endemic plants and animals.
It also claimed that the Kaladan river itself is an important ecological system. It is one of the largest in western Myanmar, flowing 350 km from its source into the sea. The lower part of the river opens up to form a fertile alluvial plain that covers a total area of 3,640 square km.
It also says that the marine environment in which the Kaladan project is being constructed is characterised by exceptional biodiversity, especially in the delta area. The ecology of the Kaladan delta includes fragile sea-grass and mangrove eco-systems, which provide habitat for many species of fish, crustaceans, sea turtles and sea mammals such as the dugong.
The author is The Statesman’s Guwahati- based Special Representative.
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