Thai envoy lays stress on motor vehicles pact

TRILATERAL HIGHWAY Wants talks on issues that need ‘ironing out’

NEW DELHI: India, Myanmar and Thailand should expedite negotiations on a motor vehicles pact and legal infrastructure before the scheduled completion of a trilateral highway so that there are no impediments to the route being opened for business, Thai ambassador Chutintorn Gongsakdi has said.

The nearly 1,400-km trilateral highway is aimed at giving a massive boost to trade in Southeast Asia and is an integral part of India’s “Act East” policy.

The project’s completion now hinges on the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) developing a 121-km two-lane highway between Yagyi and Kalewa in Myanmar, with the external affairs ministry providing ~ 1,117 crore for this section.

The segment in Myanmar is expected to be finished in May 2019 and the overall project is scheduled to be completed by 2021. But even before the completion, Gongsakdi suggested the three countries should address a host of issues — such as the motor vehicles agreement, domestic ownership caps on transportation firms, routes, customs, immigration and quarantine — in their negotiations.

“Those are some issues that require sitting down and discussing. They are not unsolvable, they can be solved, but it requires sitting down and ironing out properly,” Gongsakdi said in a recent interview to Hindustan Times. Noting that global transportation and logistics majors have a presence in India, he said: “We are concerned in negotiating the motor vehicles agreement that if we don’t… set a limit that companies which participate in this agreement have to be 51% Indian, then these multinational logistics companies could wipe out our small logistics companies.”

The three sides also have to work out routes that will be open to transport firms and issues such as whether trucks from Myanmar and Thailand will be allowed to come up to New Delhi. “Those things are the nitty gritty, though most of the media attention is on the completion. The legal infrastructure is also important and we can work on this now. We don’t have to wait until the road is completed,” Gongsakdi said. A senior official of the road transport and highways ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the external affairs ministry is playing a key role in negotiating the protocol on the movement of goods and passengers. The project is running well on time and the NHAI hopes to complete it before 2021, the official said. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is funding the project, has made a draft note in coordination with the three countries.

“It may take time to decide the protocol as three countries are involved. The transport ministry has a role in interacting and resolving transport-related issues. We plan to do it along the lines of the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) corridor,” the official said. “Diplomatic issues related to visas and secu- rity will be handled by external affairs ministry and the home ministry.” Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari met his Myanmar counterpart Thant Sin Maung in New Delhi in October to discuss work on the Kalewa-yagyi stretch of the highway and a bilateral motor vehicles agreement. Land acquisition and felling of trees are currently the biggest challenges for the segment in Myanmar. “We are working on finding solutions,” Gadkari said earlier this year.

Till December 11,716 trees had been cut out of the total of 38,316 trees to be felled.

Compensation for land is pending in some stretches but is expected to be done within two to three weeks, officials said. Gongsakdi said the trilateral highway would have a huge impact on India’s northeastern states. “The northeast has human and natural resources and the economics will pick up when the trilateral highway is done and there’s more to and fro (movement). The border trade will be massive,” he said.

Three persons — a Trinamool Congress leader, the driver of a vehicle belonging to a local ruling party MLA Biswanath Das and a youth— were killed on Thursday evening near Kolkata when unidentified criminals hurled bombs and opened gunfire on the car.

The MLA had a narrow escape as he was not in the car at the time of the incident.

The incident took place at a petrol pump in Joynagar, about 54 km to the south of Kolkata.

The deceased were identified as Saifuddin Khan, who is a local ruing party leader, Babu, the driver of the car and Selim Khan, a youth who happened to be at the spot, said MLA Das.

Police officers refused to comment, but said that CCTV footage at the petrol pump may be useful in the investigation.the death of Saifuddin took the number of people killed in political clashes in the state since the end of the festive season of Duraga Puja (October 19) to eight. A political blame game erupted after the attack.

YATRA TO STICK TO OLD ROUTE: DILIP GHOSH

A team of three BJP leaders met three top officials of the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday evening and told them that their proposed rath yatra will stick to the original route through each of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, the saffron party’s state unit chief Dilip Ghosh said.

The meeting took place at the headquarters of Kolkata Police and lasted about 30 minutes.the programme is formally styled as the Ganatantra Bachao Yatra (rally to save democracy) and is expected to be the saffron camp’s most spectacular and prolonged campaign in the state so far. “We told the government that once they approve, we will take only a couple of days to brief them of the new dates and speakers’ list. Let them give us the dates, we will schedule our star speakers’ events within 48 hours from receiving their communication. The yatra will follow the same route submitted to the government and court,” Ghosh said.