India’s recent pact with Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal to facilitate free vehicular movement coupled with the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway could potentially increase intraregional trade by almost 60% as well as extract maximum strategic mileage.
A strategic pact signed by India to facilitate free vehicular movement with Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal; alongside a proposal to step-up work on operationalising a 3200-km road link from Moreh (India) to Mae Sot (Thailand), are two vital components of the NDA government’s reinforced ‘Act East’ policy.
Skirting Pakistan, India signed a road connectivity pact with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal (BBIN) on June 15 to pave the way for greater trade and economic co-operation in the sub-region. The pact aims to open up vehicular traffic — passenger, personnel and cargo — among the signatory nations to enhance regional co-operation.
This coupled with the strategic India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway, which entails linking India to Myanmar and then further to Southeast Asia, has been taken up as priority by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister is learnt to be keen that the effective infrastructure links be established to enhance regional co-operation between South Asia and South-East Asia.
Officials in the Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways (MoRTH) say a push for the commissioning of the BBIN pact and the 3,200-km trilateral highway (which could drastically enhance the connectivity between the Mekong sub-region and India) will prove to be a game-changer for India’s North-East region and is an important component in the government’s plans to ramp up its “Look East” policy to the newly coined “Act East” policy.
A senior MoRTH official said, “The progress and economic development of the countries in the region are inter linked and enhanced regional connectivity will give a boost to trade and commerce among the countries and with other regions through intra-regional and inter-regional trade.” Government estimates suggest transforming transport corridors into economic corridors could potentially increase intraregional trade within South Asia by almost 60 per cent and with the rest of the world by over 30 per cent.
BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement to trigger off sub-regional co-operation
A BBIN Friendship Motor Rally is planned to be held in October to highlight sub-regional connectivity and the scope and opportunities for greater people-to-people contact and trade under the initiative. “The BBIN agreement has been designed to facilitate efficient road transport in the sub-region and will help each country in creating an institutional mechanism for regional integration. Exports and imports will increase and translate into new opportunities for trade and business”, added the official.
The pact will additionally give India greater access to the North-Eastern regions of the country via road links in Bangladesh; connect the locked states of Bhutan and Nepal to open seas and global markets via Chittagong. This signing of the BBIN pact is being followed through with formulation of the required protocols and procedures. This will be supplemented through building and upgrading roads, railways and waterways infrastructure, energy grids, communications and air links to ensure smooth cross border flow of goods, services, capital, technology and people.
India had mooted a road connectivity pact — the Saarc Motor Vehicles Agreement — among South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) nations comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in November 2014. It was to be signed along with the Saarc Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation and Saarc Regional Railways Agreement, but Pakistan objected to it citing the lack of internal approvals. The government consequently resolved to pursue a sub-regional motor vehicle pact among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal.
Bus services have already been inaugurated between India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Services are now available between Delhi-Kathmandu, Varanasi-Kathmandu, Kolkata-Agartala via Dhaka, and Guwahati-Dhaka and will soon become operational between Delhi-Pokhara in Nepal. Once the IMT pact comes into play, services would be available on routes like Imphal and Mandalay (Myanmar).
IMT to bridge ASEAN and SAARC economies
India, Myanmar and Thailand too have agreed to develop a similar pact on the lines of the SAARC Motor Vehicle Agreement. Secretary-level talks were concluded in Bengaluru in June. Consensus has been reached on the text of the pact. On implementation, the sub-region will get access to the larger Asean market through seamless passenger and cargo movement. “The India-Myanmar-Thailand road link is of strategic importance. It has been designed to bridge economies in the Asean and Saarc regions.
The pact is scheduled to become operational shortly and to mark the occasion a car rally would be held before March 2016,” added another official. The highway project, which is to run from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand via Mandalay in Myanmar, will ensure that India’s eastern border is opened to a new bus route from Imphal to Mandalay, which would enable travellers to board a bus from Manipur’s capital to reach Mandalay in just over 14 hours.
The entire stretch of the IMT link running from Moreh to Mae Sot is expected to be upgraded by 2018.
Highway Diplomacy
The road connectivity push will prove to be a game-changer for the North-East and is important for the Centre’s plans to ramp up its ‘Act East’ policy.
Delhi-Kathmandu
Road minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the Delhi-Kathmandu bus service on November 25, 2014. The one-way fare is around Rs 2,300. The bus connects Delhi to Kathmandu via Agra, Kanpur and Sunauli in Uttar Pradesh in 30 hours. Varanasi-Kathmandu Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav flagged off the Varanasi-Kathmandu bus service on March 5. The bus will travel on the Kathmandu-Bhairahawa-Sunauli-Azamgarh-Varanasi route, covering the 600 km journey in about 12 hours.
Kolkata-Agartala via Dhaka
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus service on June 4, 2015. The route connecting the West Bengal capital with Tripura’s capital through Indian soil is 1,675 km-long and the journey takes around 36 hours. However, the 350 km-long journey via Dhaka in Bangladesh will take not more than 16 hours.
Guwahati-Dhaka
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi inaugurated Guwahati-Dhaka bus service on June 6, 2015. The service was launched at the time when PM Narendra Modi and WB CM Mamata Banerjee were in Bangladesh.
More such routes including Imphal and Mandalay with Myanmar, Delhi – Pokhara with Nepal will soon become operational.
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