Thousands march for reopening Stillwell Road

Ledo, Sep 15: The forgotten Stillwell Road may spring back to life in land-locked North East as thousands today marched in the remote Ledo area demanding its reopening.

The march was led by the All Asom Students Union(AASU). And everybody who is somebody in the North East, demanded that the road, which links India with China through the mountainous Myanmar, be reopened.

''It is lying unutilised for the past six decades. This can be the window to the east for the North Eastern region and change the economy of the whole area,'' said AASU advisor Dr Samujjal kr Bhattacharrya,leading the huge procession.

But there is no sign of reopening of the road mainly due to insurgency. Successive chief ministers and union ministers from the region have been seeking presidential intervention ''but the Commerce and External affairs ministry is unmoved. That only shows how much they are bothered about the region,'' said Dr Bahttacarrya.

The AASU argues that if India and Pakistan could have bus and train services why could the existing Stillwell road not be ropened. However, the ground reality says that between India and China lies 252 km of unadministered territory which is the headquarters of a dozen guerrilla groups operating in India and Myanmar as well as Kachin.

Technically from Ledo in Asom the Stillwell road stretches to Kunming, the capital of Yunan province in China with a distance of a little over 1100 km. It was a functional strategic road till 1952 as it was built during the second World War but later Beijing-Delhi relations soured and all seemed to have forgotten the road, allowing weed and jungles to cover most of it.

The condition of the road now is not known but the Chinese have developed eight-lane highways right into Myanmar and the problem lies only in and around 200 kilometres of mountainous road which is dominated by militants. The road covers a stretch of 38 miles on the Indian side passing through Asom and Arunachal Pradesh. About 50 per cent of this stretch has been repaired with the initiative of the Asom and Arunachal Pradesh governments. Now the trade bodies have been demanding repairing the rest.

Despite their pleas, India and Myanmar have made it clear that they were not willing to meet the demand to have the road reopened.

Militant groups dominate a huge part of the road and India and Myanmar believe that if it was reopened insurgent groups would carry out subversive activities.

The Indian Home Ministry had stated this as being the prime reason for keeping the road closed. The decision irked several states in the north-east as they had been lobbying with the Centre to reopen the road in order to increase the volume of trade.

Economic cooperation between India and other south-east Asian countries had been increasing rapidly and hence several states from the north-east had been urging the Commerce Ministry to consider reopening the road.

The states adopted a resolution in 2001 in which the transport ministers of the region appealed to the Surface Transport Ministry to conduct a detailed survey of the road in association with Myanmar. But that is yet to bear fruit.

UNI