India-Myanmar-Thailand highway — final piece of the puzzle in New Delhi’s Atlantic to Pacific push

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New Delhi: Envisioned in 2002, the India Myanmar Thailand Trilateral Highway (IMT Highway) is now receiving a renewed push from the Indian government...

India is supposed to construct about 200 km of the highway along with upgrading 69 bridges constructed during World War II, while Thailand is responsible for roughly 30 km of construction work plus a bridge.The rest of the route will traverse parts of Myanmar...

Sreeparna Banerjee, a junior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), told ThePrint that parts of the IMT Highway, especially in the Sagaing region of Myanmar has come under control of ethnic armed organisations, which has added to the delays in the project...

As part of New Delhis efforts, Banerjee pointed to a recent visit by an Indian delegation led by K. Vanlalvena, a Rajya Sabha MP, which she said signifies a shift in Indias policy to engage with the different stakeholders in Myanmar to maintain the progress of its connectivity issues...

He, however, pointed out that while New Delhi has looked at expanding the IMT Highway from Thailand to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the project is primarily an Indian-led one and not a part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) connectivity agenda...

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