ASIAN HIGHWAY IN PRESENT FORM :It's useless for Bangladesh Dr. Abul Hashem The present Government of Bangladesh has already decided to sign the Asian Highway (AH) network agreement by accepting the routes proposed by India. It is strange that according to the ESCAP-crafted laws Bangladesh cannot even propose any amendment to the AH routes now without signing the agreement first! And not signing will mean that Bangladesh will be left out and the AH will bypass Bangladesh leaving it isolated and causing it to lose in the process the opportunities of trade, investment and service revenues. It is not clear where the AH can go in its westward advance if it bypasses Bangladesh. This assertion has been made despite the knowledge that the cost-benefit of the proposed routes does not favour Bangladesh at all. Indeed Bangladesh will not be benefited from the currently proposed routes for the AH is quite clear. One question is whether this route would then serve merely as a transit corridor for India to carry its cargo of men and materials from its one part to another through Bangladesh. Bypassing Bangladesh through the Indian "chicken neck" is also improbable. Bangladesh has a bargaining chip here if the member countries of ESCAP are serious about running the AH from east and southeast Asia to the Sub-continent and beyond. India has been asking for an easy passage through Bangladesh. Cox's Bazar - Myanmar route The point here is that AH must serve the country's best interests - and to ensure that an AH passing through Chittagong - Cox's Bazar - Myanmar and beyond is the way. Since its inception in 1959 the perception has always been that the AH will pass through Cox's Bazar - Myanmar and onward east and west. Both AH 1 and AH 2 enter Bangladesh from India through Benapole, Jessore, Banglabandha and Dinajpur, respectively. Both converge on Dhaka and move on to Tamabil, Sylhet. Neither of them fulfil the ESCAP-laid principles that the AH connects the ports, container depots and business centres of participating countries. There is no indication how the Nepalese and Bhutanese traffic will move westward along AH if the current route alignments stick. Will they move back westward through Benapole? The AH 2 also allows an easy access of North Indian traffic into Bangladesh and then on to Eastern India. Even then it remains no more than a sub-regional route. By merging with both AH 1 at Jessore and AH 2 via Hatikamrul, AH 41 travels to Dhaka and then separates out to move to Chittagong, Cox's Bazar and Teknaf to stop there. There is no indication that this route will move into Myanmar and beyond. The AH 2 also allows an easy access of North Indian traffic into Bangladesh and then on to Eastern India. Even then it remains no more than a sub-regional route. The route has been designated as a sub-regional route though it traverses Bangladesh territory only. India, Nepal and Bhutan are potential users. No other country will use this route. Thus Indian desire to use Bangladesh ports becomes easier to fulfil. Conceived fifty years ago, the Asian Highway's 141,000 km route charted out by ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) is hitherto an unfulfilled dream. Peoples from Turkey to Indonesia with Bangladesh and other countries in-between are yet to see AH's construction materialize. The dream of seeing loaded containers and international passenger buses rolling down this route from Shanghai or Singapore, or from Dhaka for that matter, to Istanbul and beyond, may not be fulfilled. Some progress regarding the AH has been achieved in recent years in defining the road links on the basis of an agreement among some of the member countries of ESCAP. Bangladeshi perspective In this backdrop I would like to see the prospects and possibilities of the proposed Asian Highway from a Bangladeshi perspective. I take the cue and clues from an interview of Dr. Rahmatullah, ex-Director of the Transport and Communication Division of ESCAP, published in a Dhaka daily on June 19, 2009. He has naturally been a vocal advocate of the AH since he handled the project since 1978 until his retirement in 2000. He has thus been instrumental in defining the road alignments and border crossing points on the basis of consultations with and submissions of individual countries regarding their road stretches to be designated as part of the AH. Until recently Bangladesh refused to sign the route agreement. As a result Bangladesh remains likely to be isolated from the Euro-Asian continent as the route will bypass Bangladesh. The country will thus lose enormous economic benefits from trade, tourism and investments. The long haul traffic movement along the AH may remain a distant dream given the complexities that have to be sorted out before traffic can move on. Even if it becomes possible otherwise, Bangladesh's benefits from such long haul road traffic through the routes, as currently proposed, remains very much doubtful. Wrong track The AH was one of the two major regional projects initiated by then ECAFE (Economic Commission for Asia and the Fareast), the other was the Mekong River project. The Trans-Asian Railway project was added to the list later. It may be mentioned here that the Asian Development Bank was also set up under the auspices of ECAFE with the primary focus on providing the financial underpinning to the regional projects like these. The projects however remained stalled due the Indochina war and the path of isolation chosen by Burma's military government since 1962. ESCAP (ECAFE's new name since 1974) revived the projects in the 1980-1990s. The Mekong River project has been successfully implemented to the satisfaction of the riparian countries with financial assistance of bilateral and multilateral donors. By now the AH has advanced a stage; but in this advance Bangladesh has fallen in the wrong track. Now let us have a detailed look at the designated three routes through Bangladesh. Both AH 1 and AH 2 enter Bangladesh from India through Benapole, Jessore, Banglabandha and Dinajpur, respectively. Both converge on Dhaka and move on to Tamabil, Sylhet. Neither of them fulfil the ESCAP-laid principles that the AH connects the ports, container depots and business centres of participating countries. The justification for a second entry into Bangladesh through Dinajpur has been to give access to Bhutan and Nepal to AH. However to fulfil the ESCAP-laid requirement that the route originating in any country must connect the capital city of the next country of entry, then Nepal and Bhutan should travel to Delhi and then move on to Bangladesh through the Benapole border. Furthermore, there is no indication how the Nepalese and Bhutanese traffic will move westward along AH if the current route alignments stick. Will they move back westward through Benapole? Is that a viable option for them? If the purpose of AH 2 is to give access to Nepal and Bhutan only then this route is the best candidate for becoming a sub-regional route rather than a part of the arterial AH. The AH 2 however also allows an easy access of North Indian traffic into Bangladesh and then on to Eastern India. Even then it remains no more than a sub-regional route. The third route through Bangladesh (AH 41) is shown to originate at Mongla port and moves on to Jessore to meet AH 1 just after the Benapole border crossing and then moves on to Hatikamrul in Kushia to meet AH 2. By merging with both AH 1 at Jessore and AH 2 via Hatikamrul, AH 41 travels to Dhaka and then separates out to move to Chittagong, Cox's Bazar and Teknaf to stop there. India, Nepal and Bhutan are likely users. No other country will use this route. Thus Indian desire to use Bangladesh ports becomes easier to fulfil. The two main arterials of the AH thus enter Bangladesh from India in the west and converges on to Tamabil in Sylhet before crossing into the Indian state of Meghalaya on to Assam, Monipur and Nagaland. It can go further to Myanmar, Southeast Asia and China, and can serve as a sub-regional network in that area though its suitability as a continent-wide Asian Highway remains in doubt. Dr.. Rahmatullah has made it abundantly clear that the route through Tamabil is unsuitable for the AH. In addition to the 1200km extra distance, he says, "the route passes through a mountainous region through four Indian states through which vehicles can move only slowly as the gradients are steep. Trucks with heavy load will have difficulties in moving, fuel consumption will be huge, making travel costly". Tamabil is not suitable for India, Myanmar or Bangladesh or for any country between south and southeast Asia". It is not clear why India will not be benefited since it can easily move its cargo of men and materials through Bangladesh to eastern India, a long held aim of India. It can also move to Southeast Asia from its eastern states if it chooses and finds profitable. Viable for India It is thus clear that the route through Tamabil to cross into Meghalaya, Assam, Monipur, Nagaland to Myanmar is not viable for Bangladesh as for other countries except India, economically (distance and costs), physically (hilly terrain) and security wise ( because of the insurgencies in the region). It is also agreed that the Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Teknaf, Myanmar route is the shortest, most economical and relatively safe not only for Bangladesh but for all countries in the east and west. The reason why ESCAP could not consider the Chittagong - Cox's Bazar - Myanmar route as the Asian Highway is that more a 150 km or so road link from Myanmar to the Bangladesh border was totally missing, a 600km road to Yangoon was too narrow and substandard, and above all, Myanmar was not interested in developing this route because of the costs involved. India's transit corridor The question remains: Did ESCAP and ADB as the sponsoring and financing agencies for the project do enough to persuade Myanmar to agree to this route for the greater good of all beneficiaries of the Asian Highway? Most countries will have to upgrade to international standard their roads, ports, bridges and border facilities to make them useable as the AH facilities, and they will need financial assistance to do that from agencies like the ADB. That Bangladesh will not be benefited from the currently proposed routes for the AH is quite clear. One question is whether this route would then serve purely as a transit corridor for India to carry its cargo of men and materials from its one part to another through Bangladesh. I believe that the corridor concept is somewhat misplaced in this context. A corridor implies a narrow strip of sovereign territory of a country connecting one part of the country to another part through the territory of another country. To understand the corridor concept we do not have to go very far. Tinbigha's plight Our Tinbigha serves to illustrate. The narrow strip of 178- meter long road provides a passage from Bangladesh's mainland to some Bangladesh enclaves located within the Indian territory. The strip is being used by Bangladeshi people to and from the enclaves subject to Indian control as the sovereignty of the strip still belongs to India. India opens the gates for 12 hours a day (it was 6 hours earlier the gates opening and closing each alternate hour) from 6 am to 6 pm allowing entry and exit for the Bangladeshis living in the enclaves. India had agreed 35 years ago to cede the sovereignty of the road strip to Bangladesh but has not yet done so. So the strip is not a Bangladeshi corridor in the strict sense. Bangladesh also will not be required to cede its sovereignty on the Asian Highway roads and the AH cannot, strictly speaking, be a corridor to any another country. It is more appropriate to say however that the AH as it is currently proposed and accepted will be an Indian Highway through Bangladesh, since few other countries, if any, will use it. It is not clear whether the present Government will seek to renegotiate the routes and how easy it would be if it does. It is pointed out that ESCAP had made an attempt in 1997-98 to alter the Tamabil - Meghalaya route to Ostgram-Karimganj-Tamu which would have reduced the distance by 200-400 km compared to the route through Tamabil. The attempt failed. The reason for the failure is not stated nor is it clear what role the then Govt of Bangladesh had in that attempt at renegotiation. It may be suspected that the failure was due to Indian opposition. India's opposition is understandable since it has got the best bargain in the Tamabil route. The initiative of the previous political govt to establish an outlet through Cox's Bazar Myanmar has apparently fallen through. It has been suggested that even if Bangladesh wants to negotiate the Cox's Bazar- Mynmar route it must have the agreement of Myanmar and India among other countries to initiate a proposal. India is said to be an affected country and hence must be a party to any renegotiation proposal. It is not stated how India becomes an 'affected country' if the route passes through Chittagong-Cox's Bazar- Myanmar. Fragile argument It is easily understandable however that India would not like to lose the advantage it has secured through Tamabil and that India will never agree to any renegotiation. Bangladesh therefore is in a catch twenty-two situation. It must sign the existing agreement for any possible renegotiation. On the other hand, signing will mean allowing largely Indian movements along the three routes running through its territory. The contention that signing the agreement does not automatically mean traffic and transit rights to any other country is rather fragile. In the reality that faces Bangladesh it is impossible for her to refuse transit rights once the road network is identified as the Asian Highway. Bangladesh certainly cannot shut its Benapole or Banglabandha gates as India does in Tinbigha.. Bangladesh will thus in effect become a grazing ground for India with entries from Banglabandha and Benapole allowing movements to Mongla, Dhaka, Chittagong and most importantly to Sylhet-Tamabil. It will further facilitate India's claim for a connection to Agartala from Akhaura or Feni, which it has already been asking, along with the strengthening of the demand for using the two ports as suits its advantage. Those who advocate Mongla and Chittagong to be turned into sub-regional ports in this manner in the hope of earning a few dollars in transit and service fees forget that slicing the small territory of Bangladesh into so many pieces for the sake those few dollars inflicts serious wounds on its body and tantamount to a negation of its sovereignty. Furthermore, the staggering costs that Bangladesh will have to incur to provide those services must figure in the calculations. What option Bangladesh has in the circumstances? Bangladesh can still stay out of the AH. As I said, the AH cannot move westward from Myanmar and eastern India bypassing Bangladesh. Bangladesh's western links are already there through bilateral agreements with immediate neighbours and can expand further if at all SAARC ever becomes operational. Its western entry/exit points will remain open as now or even for through traffic not only in Bangladesh's interests but also in the interest of huge volumes of merchandise trade of our western neighbour with Bangladesh. Bangladesh's trade traffic westward beyond the Indian land mass is likely to remain insignificant in the foreseeable future. Cox's Bazar - Mynmar option The economics of transporting Bangladesh's European trade by land routes is dubious in the presence of existing sea routes with excellent port facilities in Europe. That Bangladesh will remain isolated if it does not enter the AH agreement is simply not true. Bangladesh however should vigorously pursue the Cox's Bazar - Mynmar option in which China and Thailand are also interested even if the route is not accepted as the AH. Unfortunately our relations with Myanmar has somewhat soured since last year pushing the dream of a Bangladesh-Myanmar moitree road into a distant future. The writer is a former Section Chief of Economic Research and Policy Analysis, ESCAP. |
__._,_.___
