Kohima, May 5 (MExN): Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio has pressed for improvement of road infrastructure in the Indo-Myanmar border while also calling for Free Movement Regime to facilitate travel across the two countries.
Rio was speaking at the interactive session on ‘Act East Policy’ chaired by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday, May 4, at New Delhi, a press release from the Chief Minister’s Office Media Cell informed.
Nagaland shares around 215 kms of border with Myanmar and people on both sides of the international border share the same culture and languages. In this connection, Rio while acknowledging that security issues are important, especially with regard to presence of NSCN (K) on Myanmar side, urged the Government to ensure that ordinary villagers are not inconvenienced.
While viewing that India has made considerable progress in implementing the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Project, Rio however maintained that issues relating to increasing maritime and air connectivity between ASEAN countries and India and transforming the corridors of connectivity into economic corridors need to be fast-forwarded.
Referring to the consensus reached on finalizing the proposed protocol of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Motor Vehicle Agreement (IMT MVA), the Chief Minister opined that this agreement will play a critical role in realizing seamless movement of passengers, personal and cargo vehicles along roads linking India, Myanmar and Thailand.
On connectivity, Rio mentioned that it is important that the survey is done in a way that the roads cover the villages and habitations as roads are meant to serve people.
The most important road connecting India and Myanmar is NH 29 connecting Dimapur with Kohima and Imphal and onwards to Moreh. While 4-laning of Dimapur – Kohima is under progress and Imphal – Moreh has been approved – there is a need to ensure that Kohima – Imphal 4-laning is also taken up.
During the interactive session, Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj laid down the detailed agenda for engaging with the key stakeholders – people of the North Eastern Region for the Act East Policy with the objective of enhancing Political Security Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, and Socio Cultural Cooperation.
Swaraj chaired the interactive session on 'Act East Policy' with Chief Ministers of North Eastern States on the agenda to integrate views of the North East into the Act East Policy.
Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, Niti Aayog and Gen (Dr) VK Singh (Retd), Minister of State for External Affairs, Foreign Secretary, Secretary (East) from the Ministry of External Affairs as well as Secretaries from the Ministry of DoNER, and North Eastern Council along with officials from Civil Aviation, Ministry of Home, Road Transport & Highways took part in the discussions.
