Road To Myanmar: Beware The Bumps

This and other highways--broken by swathes of crumbling hills where work is continuing or the fragile hillsides, causing regular delays and traffic pile ups while debris is cleared--represent perhaps India’s single biggest investment in Mizoram’s history, as per the National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), a fully owned company of the Indian government’s Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. The effort is to create a smooth run to the international borders through which, India’s political leaders and planners hope, trade will flow and help the state--among India’s poorest and least developed--to finally grow, Mizoram chief minister Lalduhoma said.

It’s not just the highways that are being built. Indian Railways also has made its foray into the state, locking down a railroad from the nearest plains city of Cachar in the Barak Valley to the east. Hills have fallen, forests have been slashed and tunnels have burrowed their way through mountains, taking a humanitarian toll.

In August last year, at least 23 construction workers (some media reports put the toll at 26) from West Bengal were killed when part of a girder collapsed on a bridge across a ravine at Sairang, barely 20 km from the state capital of Aizawl. The terrain’s challenges for infrastructure and home construction and the consequent human vulnerability was highlighted late in May this year when a cyclone lashed the North East and impacted Aizawl the most, reportedly killing not less than 30 persons in house collapses and landslides within the capital district alone.

A top Mizoram official, who did not want to be identified, said that the rail project has caused extensive environmental damage. “Development is necessary but at what cost,” wondered the official, who asked not to be identified.

We have reached out to Tanmay Kumar of the media cell at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and Mahmood Ahmed, additional secretary in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, for comment on the environmental costs of infrastructure development in Mizoram, and on reducing its environmental impact. We will update the story when we receive a response.

The economics of development

The railway line is a hugely complex piece of engineering, building and design. Stretching across a small 51-km belt, the Bairabi-Sairang segment has no fewer than 130 bridges, 23 tunnels and four stations including Sairang, which is where the line ends. Clouds of dust billow across the highway and are visible from a distance, although the dust pollution and haze levels reduce when it rains.

In 2021, the World Bank approved the loan equivalent of $107 million to help build transport connectivity that would enable economic activity in Mizoram. In a report outlining the project, it described the state as one of the poorest in the country and outlined why it was providing the financial support, the second part of a package designed to build the economy of the far-flung province.

“Mizoram’s low economic development is in large part due to its landlocked location, poor infrastructure, and limited linkages with the markets and ports of neighbouring countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Myanmar, which are physically closer to Mizoram than the rest of India,” the report said. “The nearest major Indian city from Aizawl is Guwahati, which is about 500 km away; it takes about two days to cover this distance because of the underdeveloped and poor condition of the road network.”

“Improving transport links within the NER [northeastern region] and with Bangladesh, especially Chittagong Port, which is only about 100 km away from the border of Mizoram, would therefore have a very significant impact, both by lowering prices for Mizoram’s consumers and businesses, and by giving Mizoram (and other NER states) access to the wider markets accessible via Bangladesh,” the report said.

In fact, on Aizawl’s periphery, the bumpy road that expands into a smooth highway heading south around 165 km to Lungleh, the second largest town in Mizoram, is popularly known as the ‘World Bank Road’.

The bulk of the road building is being done not under the World Bank-funded project which is limited to the Lungleh stretch, but by the NHIDCL.

By investing about Rs 16,556 crore on designing, building and sustaining highways to connect Mizoram to Bangladesh and Myanmar, the Union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent clear signals of commitment and intent: this is the single biggest investment in the state in its history.

The Act East Policy: Roads and roadblocks

This investment is the most visible facet of the Union government’s Act East Policy. Work continues even in conflict-ravaged Manipur, where contractors and officials work and travel under security, but there have been cases of intimidation by different groups, as per NHIDCL. The NHIDCL says that improved regional connectivity would “promote cross border trade and commerce and help safeguard India’s international borders” and thus build “a more integrated and economically consolidated South and South East Asia”.

There are external and internal challenges, says Virender Kumar Jakhar, an executive director at NHIDCL who looks after work in Mizoram and Manipur. One part of it is an old tension that crackles across the country--inter-departmental turf wars. Thus, in several parts of Mizoram, both small and long stretches of work are held up because of entrenched and diametrically opposed positions taken by the revenue department and the forest department.

It takes years sometimes to reconcile differences, resulting in project delays and cost overruns. Problems associated with land acquisition were reported as far back as 1982, when an official note in the Ministry of Home Affairs, accessed through the National Archives of India, identified a part of another infrastructure project, a railway line, between Lallaghat in Assam and Bhairabi in Mizoram where “25 cases involving a distance of 47 kms have been received”.

Another note, (accessed through the National Archives of India) which was reviewed by a Committee of Ministers set up by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to look into development and project delays, noted the conflict between the forest department and the Ministry of Railways.

“Some of the lines … are passing though reserve forest areas which can be de-reserved only after concurrence of the Central Government is obtained under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Thus, 1,000 labourers engaged on the Lallaghat-Bhairabi section have been rendered idle due to orders of the Conservator of Forests (Assam) to stop work at site.”

These days, the proposed expansion of the busiest road from Silchar in the Assam plains to Sairang, just short of Aizawl, has stalled even as trucks, buses, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and dumpers lumber, groan, complain and squeal up broken, dusty stretches where the road narrows to a single track and vehicles have to let others pass to avoid collisions or major snarls.

Delays have long plagued work here for different reasons. Thus, over 40 years back (November 1981), the Border Roads Development Board noted that the first phase of widening the road in the Kawmpuii-Sairang sector suffered a setback “because this portion is understood to be likely to get submerged on construction of a dam across the river Dhaleswari”.

Even the chief secretary, the top civilian official in the state, has negotiated and sought to resolve the differences, but contentious issues over what constitutes revenue land and forests persist. “For two years it has been like this,” says Jakhar of NHIDCL.

Yet, despite these problems, NHIDCL has made the North East its priority with a bunch of regional offices and a clutch of projects ranging from Arunachal Pradesh to Tripura. According to its website, with an investment of Rs 6,700 crore, the North-eastern region took up one third of the organisation’s total planned expenses of Rs 19,579 crore in 2022-23.

The earmarked amount was to lay 318 km of roads. Mizoram was an overachiever in 2021-22, the most recent year for which figures are available. The state built 179 km, more than the 144 km target. By comparison, Meghalaya, which is better connected and has a high tourist footfall, struggled to achieve 17 km of the planned 63 km, Arunachal Pradesh built 96 km of 155 km, and Nagaland 213 km against its target of 180 km.

The benefits of development

Where the problems have been successfully tackled, local Mizos and residents have clearly benefited.

The changes and improved incomes are visible as money--given as compensation for securing access, which entails demolishing existing homesteads and cutting across farms and shops--have been invested in spanking new houses of cement, metal and shiny glass replacing shacks of wood and tin roofs, even in old villages along the highway where new settlements take shape.

The sole small airport at Lengpui, an hour’s run from Aizawl and built by flattening hills, has been managed by the state government since its inception, not by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which directs air traffic and maintains airports across India. The terminal building and passenger access to the tarmac has long had a sense of incompleteness, with inadequate seating for waiting passengers before check-in and security clearance, and few toilets. Unlike other airports across the country, there are only a handful of temporary snack bars and shops. However, there are now plans to hand it over to the AAI.

“We have paid Rs 11,000 crore, including for land acquisition, over the years,” said Jakhar, whose modern office overlooks a quiet neighbourhood of Aizawl where, as in other parts of the state capital, buildings are densely packed on the edge of precipices and steep hills.

In Mizoram, officials from NHIDCL say, the highest investment is that on the incomplete highway which races, in fits and starts, about 170 km to Champhai and on to the Myanmar border. The road on which we are travelling is clearly the star attraction, the marquee billboard. An estimated Rs 4,000 crore has been invested here, and contractors have come from across the country to bid and build, Jakhar said.

A bus stop on the new highway in Mizoram.

At times, it looks as if one is driving through the European countryside, with magnificent vista of green hills, forested valleys, smooth and spanking clean roads, with lay-bys and even smart bus stops. A decade ago, the ride from Aizawl to Champhai was a bone-jarring journey that could take as much as eight or nine hours. Today, with occasional stops for road repairs and ongoing construction or rockfall, a traveller can cover it in less than five hours. The new roads have reduced the route by about 40 km.

The only problem is that the bus stops are invariably empty, there are no pit stops for rest areas, coffee, snacks or toilets, and no fuel stations. There are also few hotels, inns or guest houses of measurable standard where tourists can stay.

Plans are afoot to start wayside amenities including food stops that serve a menu that goes beyond the usual rice, pork, chicken and fresh vegetables fare. “There are many opportunities for tourism but we have to make it much more tourist-friendly with these facilities,” said Jakhar.

There are challenges to these bright hopes. Among these are the large-scale smuggling of toxic drugs and other banned items from Myanmar into Mizoram and then to other parts of the North Eastern region and beyond. Recently, a major arms smuggling ring was cracked in Aizawl. Border guards say they are understaffed and overworked for jobs such as handling narcotics smuggling, when the primary duty of the Assam Rifles, the prime force on the Indian side of the Myanmar border, is national security.

“We’ve been saddled with checking trucks and shipments, but we don’t have the necessary human resources to do that,” said one official from the Assam Rifles, who cannot be named as per the rules of the briefing.

In addition to this problem, Aizawl residents acknowledge that there are several additional disincentives to tourists in the state. One is the policy of liquor prohibition--there are no wine or liquor stores, even though there are two wineries in Champhai that produce a rich port wine for sale and distribution outside the state. However, for a premium, local fixers can arrange good quality whiskey, wine, beer or even single malts.

Another issue is the early closing hours for stores and markets across the state. In the main city of Aizawl, the only mall in town closes by 5.30 p.m., and very few cafes and chemists are open in the late evening.

There are about 15 established infrastructure companies from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere which have won contracts in Mizoram and other parts of the North East. Local Mizo contractors have got one stretch of road in the extreme south. The primary reasons for this is that few locals have the deep pockets needed to acquire and sustain the use of heavy machinery, or the design and technical skills as well as human resources.

Those involved in the projects say that each team includes technical experts such as an executive engineer with a 20-member team including bridge design specialists, a laboratory to test earth samples to check for vulnerability and strength, as well as 350-400 labourers. They live in specially-established camps which have running water, electricity, cabins and kitchens as well as camp offices and laboratories.

The fleet of heavy machinery across the state includes 600-700 trucks and 250-300 earth cutting and moving machines. Each contractor has put in place a hot mix plant which makes the road construction material on site. There are complaints against soil and rock dumping into creeks, researchers and farmers told us, but Jakhar said that earth moving vehicles are there to ensure that major sludge is not dumped and any earth that accumulates is removed.

“The most challenging part is that five months of each year are taken up by monsoon rains when it is very difficult to work, and road building really slows down,” said Jakhar. Essentially, this means that there’s a working window of seven months when there is dry weather.

He hopes that when the project is complete and shopping malls are in place, travellers will come to “enjoy the weather and the scenery, because (right now) this is not a happening place”.

(This is the third and final piece in a three-part series on the unfolding crisis on the India-Myanmar border and a new infrastructure drive to connect the rugged isolated border state of Mizoram.)

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