On a cool and moist afternoon in India’s North-East, in a region long defined by distance and difficult terrain, policymakers and diplomats gathered to talk about roads, rivers and ports, and about how geography might finally begin to work in the North-East’s favour. The region is undergoing a profound transformation, as a cluster of pocket connectivity projects begins to redraw the region’s economic map and strategic relevance in Asia.
At a high-level meeting held in Shillong last week, the policymakers and diplomats were joined by infrastructure experts to examine how emerging transport corridors could link North-East India more closely with Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific economy. The meeting was convened by the think tank Asian Confluence, led by its executive director Sabyasachi Dutta, in collaboration with India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the government of Japan and the regional grouping BIMSTEC.
While one project is the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, another is the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which aims to provide sea access to India’s north-eastern states through Myanmar. A third project is a deep-sea port being constructed by Japan at Bangladesh’s Matarbari, which will connect industrial clusters ranging from Bangladeshi garment makers to Tata’s mega semi-conductor complex in Assam to the global market. “North-East India is located in a pivotal geopolitical position as a gateway to Southeast Asia.
When we view this region as part of a broader economic zone encompassing Nepal, Bhutan, India, Bangladesh, and Southeast Asia, it possesses significant potential to serve as a powerful engine of growth,” pointed out Japan’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, HORII Iwao, at the meeting. The minister added that, as part of Japan’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” initiative, Tokyo “will work toward realising the concept of an ‘Industrial Value Chain’ connecting the Bay of Bengal and Northeast India.”
India and Japan have already signed a strategic Semiconductor Supply Chain Partnership, and the Tata Group’s Rs 27,000-crore investment in a greenfield facility in Assam for assembly and testing of semiconductor chips for applications across automotive, mobile devices, artificial intelligence, and other key segments. The two Asian powers’ strategy is to dovetail into a well-planned “industrial value chain”. The deep-sea port under construction at Matarbari, being developed with substantial financial and technical support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, once operational will handle between 16 million and 38 million tonnes of cargo annually and accommodate large vessels with a draught of up to 16 meters.
Indian planners are examining ways to connect the North-East to Matarbari through road, rail and coastal shipping routes. The initiative also links with broader regional frameworks, such as the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Initiative and the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Hubs, both aimed at fostering cross-border supply chains and expanding exports to Southeast Asian and Indo-Pacific markets. Said K.C. Sunil, president of the Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, “Nepal wants to sell hydel power to Bangladesh and use its ports to sell to the world our exports. While the Kolkata-Haldia port complexes will remain our principal entrepots, Matarbari will help ease the strain.”
Among the most prominent projects is the 1,360 -km long India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, one of the flagship overland corridors envisioned under the Act East strategy. When completed, the highway will link the Indian border town of Moreh with Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. Once the main highway hits Thailand, it can connect with a network of well-planned highways and expressways linking Singapore to Vietnam’s Ho-Chi-Minh City and, from pivotal ports, the entire Asia-Pacific seaboard. Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to India, Riaz Hamidullah, said, “Bangladesh aspires to connect to northeast India, Nepal-Bhutan and to the trilateral Highway to our east.
Bangladesh has consistently emphasised for such a comprehensive connectivity that would unlock granular or larger supply chains to make mutual interdependence impactful.” Another major initiative discussed was the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which aims to provide sea access to India’s north-eastern states through Myanmar. The project links the port city of Kolkata to Sittwe port in Myanmar by sea and then connects to India’s landlocked state of Mizoram through inland waterways along the Kaladan River and a network of roads. “Our portion of the connectivity up to Mizoram’s border with Myanmar is absolutely ready,” Ro Chamliana, member secretary of the Mizoram Institute of advanced studies, said. While much of the Kaladan project is ready and trial shipments to Sittwe have been made, a civil war in Myanmar is holding up the project’s operationalisation.
“India is moving both logistically and diplomatically on these connectivity projects. Obviously when third countries are involved, we have to wait till they are ready. However, once realised, these projects can be game changers for the entire region,” pointed out Riva Ganguly Das, Secretary-East in the Ministry of External Affairs. Officials say the proposed corridor could offer an alternative logistics connectivity to the North-East, reducing dependence on the narrow Siliguri Corridor, often referred to as the “Chicken’s Neck”, that currently links the region to the rest of India.
India is also expanding inland waterways across the North-East, particularly along the National Waterway-2 on the Brahmaputra River. Plans include cargo terminals at Pandu and Jogighopa, along with a network of river jetties designed to integrate river transport into the region’s logistics chain and improve connections to ports along the Bay of Bengal. Like all grandiose international connectivity projects, time and political scenarios across borders are a major constraint. Once the roadways and sea-routes being worked upon are complete, the North-East and the entire larger region from Bangladesh to Nepal and Bhutan, may yet see a new sunrise.
(THE AUTHOR IS A SENIOR JOURNALIST WITH UNI & THE STATESMAN)