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Neiphiu Rio, third from right, along with other chief minsters from the NE states and Sushma Swaraj after an interaction in New Delhi.[/caption]
Dimapur, May 5 (EMN): The chief minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio has said that even as the Free Movement Regime has facilitated the travel of Naga people across the Indo-Myanmar border –Nagaland shares around 215 km of border with Myanmar – there is a need to improve road infrastructure along the eastern corridor.
Speaking during an interactive session on ‘Act East Policy’ chaired by the union minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj on May 4 at New Delhi, Rio said that while security issues are important, especially with regard to presence of NSCN (K) on Myanmar side, the government needs to ensure that ordinary villagers are not inconvenienced.
This was informed thorough a press release from the media cell of the chief minister’s office on Saturday. “The chief minister mentioned that while India has made considerable progress in implementing the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Project, issues related 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. A possible extension to India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway to Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam is also under consideration, Rio said,” the statement informed.
Referring to the consensus reached on finalising 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 realising seamless movement of passengers, personal and cargo vehicles along roads linking India, Myanmar and Thailand, it stated.
On the discussion 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, he suggested.
During the interactive session, Swaraj also 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, it informed.
She chaired the interactive session on 'Act East Policy' with chief ministers of north-eastern states on the agenda to integrate views of the Northeast into the Act East Policy. “Other NE chief ministers who attended include Sarbananda Sonowal (Assam), N Biren Singh (Manipur), Conrad Sangma (Meghalaya) and Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura) etc who also took part in the session,” it informed.
