India's Look East Policy Needs Concrete Action

NEW DELHI: India's Look East Policy, in which Myanmar plays a key role as the route for major connectivity between India's landlocked northeast and Southeast Asia, needs to rise above "mere academic talk" to show "more concrete action", experts said.

According to experts, the connectivity corridors like the Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Project need to be fast turned into development corridors and stakeholders in the region involved in it.

Rajiv K. Bhatia, director general of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and former envoy to Myanmar, said mere "academic talk is no substitute for concrete action" in the development of the connectivity corridors.

"Other stakeholders need to be motivated, and not just the ministry of external affairs," he said at a talk on 'Look East Policy: India and Myanmar Pitching for Greater Connectivity" on Monday.

Bhatia said more funding is needed for the projects and better high-level management and visible and sustained action. He suggested that the authorities should issue "authoritative notes on when the projects, like Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multimodal Project, will be completed - or the deadlines will keep lengthening".

Speaking at the event organised by the Institute of Social Sciences here, senior journalist and author B.G. Varghese said the government has "structurally not got its act together" on the connectivity projects that are meant to link the landlocked northeast with the Southeast Asian region.