Japan’s growing role in the Northeast
Among important projects Japan will collaborate on are the Guwahati Water Supply Project and Guwahati Sewage Project in Assam, Northeast Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project, spread over Assam and Meghalaya, Northeast Network Connectivity Improvement Project in Meghalaya, Biodiversity Conservation and Forest Management Project in Sikkim
The inauguration ceremony of a project to construct a secondary school for scheduled-tribe (ST) students, with Japanese aid, was held in the northeast Indian state of Manipur on August 6. The project at Chandel in Manipur is under Japan’s Grant Assistance for Grassroots Projects (GGP) scheme. Established in 1989 the scheme aims to meet diverse basic human needs in developing countries.
The Manipur project, which will cost approximately 8.4 million yen around USD78,500, would help build a secondary school for 250 ST students in the area. According to the Japanese embassy, a primary school was built in 2011 through GGP support, after which the requirement was felt for a new school building, for secondary students.
So, apart from playing a major role in infrastructure development in India’s Northeast, Japan is working to meet basic human needs in the region too. India’s north-eastern region, because of its strategic location, is a key area of the India-Japan development aid cooperation.
Though Japan has been working on development in the Northeast for some time, the pace of work was energised with the launch of the India-Japan Act East Forum in December 2017. The Forum provides a platform for India-Japan collaboration under the rubric of New Delhi’s Act East Policy and Tokyo’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIPS). It seeks to identify specific projects for economic modernisation of the Northeast including those pertaining to connectivity, development infrastructure, industrial linkages and people-to-people contacts through tourism, culture and sports-related activities.
The India-Japan Vision Document signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan in October 2018, for the annual bilateral summit with his counterpart Shinzo Abe, also refers to this Forum and its work.
“The two Prime Ministers welcomed the progress made for the development of India’s north-eastern region through the India-Japan Act East Forum by identifying and implementing projects for enhancing connectivity, sustainable forest and ecological management, disaster risk reduction and people-to-people exchanges,” the Document stated.
The second meeting of the India-Japan Act East Forum was held in New Delhi in October 2018. The meeting identified further areas of cooperation for development, including connectivity, forest management, industrial uses of bamboo, disaster management and people-to-people exchanges.
In June 2019, after a meeting between Minister of State (IC) for Development of North-eastern Region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh and a Japanese delegation led by Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu, Japan committed to invest 205.784 billion yen (around INR 13,000 crore) in several ongoing and new projects in different states of the Northeast.
Among important projects Japan will collaborate on are the Guwahati Water Supply Project and Guwahati Sewage Project in Assam, Northeast Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project, spread over Assam and Meghalaya, Northeast Network Connectivity Improvement Project in Meghalaya, Biodiversity Conservation and Forest Management Project in Sikkim, Sustainable Forest Management Project in Tripura, Technical Cooperation Project for Sustainable Agriculture and Irrigation in Mizoram and Forest Management Project in Nagaland.
Connectivity is an important area under India’s Act East Policy as the Northeast is seen as the gateway to southeast Asia, hence New Delhi is laying stress on development of infrastructure in the Northeast.
Two major ongoing projects are the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway connecting Moreh in Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand and the Kaladan Multi-modal Transport Project connecting Mizoram with Sittwe port in Myanmar.
Japan’s FOIPS too has connectivity as its focus as it calls for unimpeded movement of goods and services in the Indo-Pacific region – from eastern Africa to south Asia to southeast Asia to the western Pacific region and Japan. With India’s Northeast being seen as a key part of Tokyo’s Indo-Pacific strategy, the Japan International Cooperation Agency will provide an Overseas Development Assistance loan of 25,483 million yen (around INR 1,570 crore) for construction of what will be India’s longest bridge – a 19.3 km bridge over the river Brahmaputra,