Mizoram Chief Minister Lalthanhawla is unhappy that virtually no private investor has shown interest in taking up projects in his state. He is, however, hopeful of achieving considerable economic gains with the opening up of border trade between India and Myanmar through his state.
The process of economic liberalisation has completely bypassed us, he told `Business Standard here yesterday.
Border trade between north-eastern states and Myanmar has been continuing illegally since quite some time, but recently India and Myanmar agreed to set up official posts along the border to regulate the trade. Lalthanhawla said from Mizoram alone, the amount of trade to the neighbouring country is worth nearly Rs 500 crore annually.
All this is carried out illegally, and an effort is being made now to regulate it to the benefit of both countries. Under funding from the North-East Council (NEC), the state government is laying concrete roads, providing water supply and electricity to offices that would come up along the border, mainly in Champhai. Similar arrangements have also
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been made in Moreh in Manipur.
Lalthanhawla also wants the revival of the age-old water and road trade routes from Mizoram to West Bengal through Bangladesh. This would link the state with Chittagong and drastically reduce the distance to Calcutta. Now the approach to Calcutta from the state is arduous and
through Assam via Siliguri.
He said on the request of the state government, Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda had taken up the matter with the Bangladesh government.
Lalthanhawla has interacted with the Bangladesh High Commissioner, and the issue figured at the recent India-Bangladesh trade talks in Calcutta, he said. The border point between Mizoram and Bangladesh is Tlabung (Dhemagiri), where RITES is currently carrying out a feasibility report, he said.
Regretting that the benefits of economic liberalisation had not
percolated to the north-eastern state, the Chief Minister said things could not improve unless there was massive development in the states infrastructure. He said it formed a vicious cycle: no investor comes in because there is no infrastructure, and because there is no development, militancy takes root.
Despite the tax concessions and moratoriums on taxes that the Centre has given us, none of us, not even Assam-the big brother with oil infrastructure, train and air connections and river routes-can take advantage of them. After December 1994, there were 1,014 investments in Punjab, 3733 in Maharashtra, but in the entire north-east there were only 58 initiatives. Of these, 48 were in Assam and they were only letters of intent. And there was not a single one in Mizoram, Lalthanhawla said. He is, however, awaiting a report of a committee formed by Gowda under the chairmanship of Planning Commission member S P Shukla on the gaps in infrastructure in the north-east later this month. It could be a base on which concerted initiatives could be launched to improve the infrastructure in the north-eastern region, he said.
Meanwhile, intense activity is on near the state capital of Aizawl where a hillock is being levelled to make way for an airport that is fit for major aircraft like the Airbus to land and take-off. Lalthanhawla said the airport would be operational by March 1998, and hoped that it would be given the status of an international airport. Apart from the Borjhar airport near Guwahati, he said the Centre has decided to have one more international airport in the north-east in the near future.
In the next decade, I see Mizoram and the north-east becoming a gateway for economic activity between India and the booming economies of the Far East. After decades of insurgency, Mizoram is one of the rare states in the region that is peaceful, and conducive to economic activity, given the right amount of infrastructure development, Lalthanhawla said.