Highway pact after car rally
File picture of a car participating in the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal friendship car rally in 2015. File picture
Shillong, Aug. 9: India hopes that the much-awaited signing of a highway agreement with Myanmar and Thailand will materialise after a trilateral friendship car rally in November.
“We are planning to do a trilateral friendship car rally in November embarking from Guwahati to Shillong, and then to Manipur before going to Myanmar and Thailand. The car rally is to promote this vehicle agreement,” Preeti Saran, secretary (east), ministry of outer affairs, told The Telegraph here on the sidelines of the opening of an Asean investigate centre at North Eastern Hill University (Nehu) here.
Asked if signing of the vehicle agreement would go after soon after the car rally, the official said, “The agreement is under negotiation inbetween India, Myanmar and Thailand. Hopefully we can sign the trilateral agreement after the car rally.”
There has been an inordinate delay in signing of the agreement.
The proposed trilateral strategic agreement will facilitate movement of vehicles linking Manipur’s Moreh (India) to Mae Sot (Thailand) via different routes in Myanmar.
During the visit of Thailand Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-O-Cha to India in June, both the countries agreed to expedite the construction of India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway and hold negotiations on the India-Myanmar-Thailand motor vehicles agreement.
The trilateral highway, which is under renovation, includes seventy three bridges and is expected to boost communication inbetween the Northeast and Southeast Asia.
India provides funding for the renovations of seventy three dilapidated bridges along the route that were originally built during World War II.
The foreign ministry had already invited a tender for selection of a contractor for constructing sixty nine bridges, including treatment roads on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa section of the trilateral highway in Myanmar.
“We have now commenced the construction of the road and sixty nine bridges in Myanmar, and it is expected to be ended by 2019,” Saran said.
India, under the present BJP-led NDA government, is also actively pursuing to implement the Act East Policy aimed at enhancing relations with Asean and other east Asian nations, especially through trade and commerce.
The trilateral highway will provide access for goods from the northeastern region and other parts of India to markets of Asean countries through a land route once Myanmar is connected by road to Thailand.
India also planned to extend the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway to Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam in the 2nd phase.