MYANMAR
Not many Indians are familiar with Paletwa, a town in western Myanmar, just over 100km from the Mizoram border. Paletwa has been the site of intense battles in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, where the military junta was engaged in a fierce conflict with the Arakan Army.
The Arakan Army has made significant strides in establishing a de facto independent territory in Rakhine state and southern Chin State, governing over a population of more than two and a half million. Earlier this year, it captured Paletwa, located in the neighbouring Chin state, by seizing junta bases and command centres.
For India, it posed a major strategic challenge, as Paletwa is a vital cog in the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP), a critical connectivity initiative aimed at linking India’s landlocked northeast with the country’s mainland and countering China’s growing influence in the region.
The project had been stalled for years due to the civil war, but there is now optimism that it will resume soon, as India has been able to convince the Myanmar military and Arakan Army about its importance. The KMTTP project will connect Kolkata port to Sittwe port in Myanmar’s Rakhine (Arakan) state via the Bay of Bengal. An inland waterway will link Sittwe to Paletwa, and a road will extend further from Paletwa to Zorinpui in Mizoram.
While most components of the project are complete―such as the construction of Sittwe port, a river terminal at Paletwa, and the dredging of the 158-kilometre stretch of the Kaladan River―the Paletwa-Zorinpui highway is awaiting construction.
Five firms in Myanmar, including one affiliated to the government, have set up a consortium to build the 109km highway. The consortium has signed an agreement with the Indian Railway Construction Company (IRCON), which bagged the contract from the Indian government nearly two years ago.
During a visit to an office of the consortium in Myanmar, located near the border with Zorinpui, this writer found a few employees and an assortment of vehicles, JCBs and other equipment. Work on the two-lane highway is expected to begin after the end of the rainy season, said a Myanmarese national associated with the project. The highway will pass through jungle and inhospitable terrain, under the control of the Arakan Army.
Several deadlines for the completion of the project have been missed since work on the project began in 2010. India and Myanmar signed a framework agreement in 2008 for the project aimed at creating a multi-modal transport route for shipment of cargo from the eastern ports of India to Myanmar as well as to northeast India. In 2015, the Indian government gave its approval for the revised cost estimate of approximately Rs2,900 crore.
On November 3, 2019, 10 people including five Indian nationals and a Myanmarese lawmaker were abducted by the Arakan Army as they were travelling from Paletwa to Kyauktaw in Rakhine state on two boats. An Indian worker died of heart attack before the entire group was released almost five months later.
Two of the Indian abductees were employees of the Engineers Projects India Limited (EPIL), which was initially awarded the contract for construction of the highway between Zorinpui and Paletwa, along with C & C Construction Co Ltd. While EPIL is a government-owned firm, C & C is a Gurugram-based private company.
As conflict erupted between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, India terminated the contract with EPIL and C & C in mid-2022. An unnamed Indian official was quoted by the media as saying that the “uncertain situation in Myanmar” was behind the decision. India later chose IRCON, which has experience of executing projects in foreign countries.
The abduction of Indian workers and the termination of the contract by India were turning points in the project. India realised that the project could not be completed without the support of the Arakan Army. Subsequently, several meetings were held between functionaries of the Arakan Army and Indian government officials to hammer out a solution.
The Arakan Army reportedly assured India that it was not against the project, but only wanted to protect the interests of the local people. “The southern Chin state is among the most neglected regions in Myanmar. Currently, travelling from Zorinpui to Paletwa is possible only by river. The completion of the Kaladan project will mean motorable highways in the region and faster movement of goods and people,” said a middle-ranking officer of the Arakan Army.
Twan Mrat Naing, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, said in a recent interview that securing and stabilising Paletwa was important for the “timely and safe” implementation of the Kaladan project. He explained that investment on the project would benefit “not only the local population, but also India, Arakan and other stakeholders in the region.”
According to sources in the Indian government, it was resolved in the meetings with the Arakan Army that IRCON would enter into agreements with Myanmar-based firms for implementation of the project. These sub-contractors, in turn, would take the Arakan Army into confidence while arranging the logistics and firming up the plan for execution on the ground.
Despite all these developments, the project still faces the threat of becoming a target of the junta’s aerial attacks. Almost all resistance hotspots in the country have suffered from indiscriminate bombings by the military regime, including the regions under control of the Arakan Army. Kyauktaw, which is about 80km south of Paletwa, was the most recent target where at least four people were killed. One of the reasons why New Delhi is offering military assistance to the junta is to ensure safety for the Kaladan project.
As I arrived at the jetty in Paletwa after a boat ride from the town, a large signpost on the opposite bank of the Kaladan River caught my eye. Displaying the flags of India and Myanmar, it bore the inscription “India-Myanmar Friendship Project”.
The jetty appeared to be in a dilapidated state, seemingly unable to handle a significant volume of cargo from Sittwe. It was partially submerged in the first week of August after a heavy downpour. There were about 15 big and small unused vehicles in the compound of the office that was equipped with chairs, tables, a few computers and other electronic gadgets on the first floor. The incomplete highway could be seen skirting the compound on the eastern flank.
The two employees who were sitting on the verandah of the ground floor did not know if there was any plan for renovation of the office. “Everything is uncertain here because of the disturbed conditions. But we have been told that there could be some developments after the end of the rainy season,” said one of them in the local Arakanese language, which was translated to me by a functionary of the United League of Arakan (ULA), the political front of Arakan Army.
In all likelihood, the construction of the highway will begin from Zorinpui for reasons of safety and the easy availability of all the necessary ingredients, including fuel that could be sourced from Mizoram.
The highway connecting Zorinpui with the district headquarters of Lawngtlai in Mizoram is 87km long. A major portion of the highway was completed six years ago, but the remaining stretch hit legal hurdles after landowners demanded compensation from the government. The issue is yet to be resolved. An official explained that the landowners’ claims over some areas overlap with the jurisdiction of the land revenue department. “We have sent all documents to Aizawl. It is now up to the government to arrive at a final decision,” said the official.
It took me four hours on the bumpy and pot-holed Kaladan highway to reach Zorinpui from Lawngtlai. During my return journey on July 6, the highway was found blocked, as heavy rains had washed away 250m of the road.
From Lawngtlai, the 230km highway (National Highway 54) to Aizawl is narrow and it is unlikely that it would be able to handle a large volume of traffic if trade picks up with Myanmar through this route. Sources in the government claimed that work had started to broaden the highway. Some structures have been demolished and tenders have been floated for award of contracts. And, sources claimed, there were some stretches in the highway that have been ‘entangled in court cases.’
The plan is to connect Aizawl with Silchar in south Assam over a distance of around 170 kilometres, which is the starting point of the East West Corridor to Porbandar in Gujarat. Certainly, it is a long road ahead for the project, which could take several years before it is finally completed given the conditions in Myanmar and Mizoram.
The author is a senior journalist from Assam.