Fantasy highway

Neither the title – Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development Project – nor its acronym, ALTID, rolls off the tongue. The sombre and somewhat vague designation seems inappropriate for such an ambitious undertaking – nothing less than building a standardised transportation network across Asia, linking the continent to Europe. This colossal stab at creating connectivity is to be achieved through two modes of transport: the Asian Highway and the Trans-Asian Railway. In their final avatars, these will consist of over 140,000 km of road and railroad tracks, each spanning over 32 countries. That is what has long been promised, anyway. After Bangladesh signed on during the past month, all of the countries in Southasia are today, technically, members of ALTID. But even this latest move highlights the difficulty of ever bringing this vision to fruition.

The push to build the two networks first came from the United Nations in the early 1960s. But it was abandoned, after some work had been done, during the 1970s due to a lack of funds. Thereafter, no progress was possible during the two decades of Cold War. Both ideas were then revived in 1992, when the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the UN’s regional development body, launched ALTID. Over a decade later, progress has been erratic. Today, the only stretch where construction work is complete is the so-called North-South Corridor of Asian Highway 3, which runs from China to Cambodia via Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. That only this sector is complete is curious in itself, considering the fact that most of the construction work on AH-3 entails upgrading dirt roads or repairing stretches of run-down track, rather than building from scratch.

By and large, however, the response of the governments in the region has been less than overwhelming. India is the only exception, in one instance having put together a USD 12 million plan to improve 10,000 km of its highways, many of which would fall on the Asian Highway matrix. Regardless of the lacklustre response overall, however, what is interesting is the level of consensus that is seen in the region’s capitals on this issue. Considering the mistrust and acrimony that characterises the relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad for instance, neither has raised a stir over the Asian Highway connecting the two through the Wagah-Attari border. Though that is not to say that politics is entirely absent.

Which brings us back to Dhaka’s decision to join the network. Although Sheikh Hasina’s government has now made official the country’s stance on the issue – despite the strident resistance from opposition leader Khaleda Zia – Bangladesh is far from decided on the routes through which the Asian Highway will pass in its territory. The country’s long-standing resistance to joining the network arose not out of opposition to the idea itself, but rather from a fear of serving simply as a transit route for India if the proposed road from the border town of Tamabil in the northeast to Benapole in the southwest was built. While a direct route from the Indian mainland to the Indian Northeast through to Bangladesh should provide ample opportunities for income for the latter, suspicions and counter-suspicions have long muddied the matter. On the whole, Bangladesh joining the Asian Highway would bring to full use the massive Bangabandhu bridge over the Brahmaputra (Jamuna), which was completed in 1998 and sees sparse traffic.

While there seems a reluctance vis-à-vis India, Bangladesh is keen to link up with Burma. But it wants this to be through a road from Dhaka straight to Rangoon – instead of a route first through the Indian Northeast, as is currently planned. Now that it has joined the Asian Highway wagon, though, Dhaka will be able to propose such a change; earlier it could not do so, as ESCAP regulations state that those not signed onto the network cannot propose route changes. The road through Rangoon, however, is unlikely to be built. The economic considerations for Burma underline that it would profit a great deal more by sharing a road with India (through Imphal in Manipur), rather than one running through the southeastern town of Teknaf in Bangladesh.

No really, look east
That all of Southasia now agrees (at least on paper) to connect with each other and beyond, is undoubtedly a positive development. But it is not yet time to bring out the ladoos. Complicated as it will be to complete the infrastructural facelift, the real challenge lies in enacting laws that would allow Southasians to reap the full benefits of a transport grid such as the Asian Highway. After all, there is already a road connecting India and Pakistan going through Wagah, yet improvements to that link have little value if citizens from neither country can use the link freely. The ALTID agreement that member states signed itself makes the distinction between construction and use, stating that: “nothing in this agreement should be construed an acceptance of an obligation by any party to permit the movement of goods and passenger traffic across its territory.” The Asian Highway is unlikely to have had many supporters had this clause not existed.

In contemplating the way forward, Southasian governments would do well to look east. The greatest success story of the Asian Highway today is the case of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, which have recently agreed to a Cross Border Transport Agreement. The accord, which permits shipments to cut across all three countries without requiring the cargo to be unloaded at each border point, has dramatically reduced both costs and the time of transport. Under an existing agreement between the three parties, this network will now be extended from Thailand to Burma, finally ending in India. From there, of course, the rest of the region is just down the road. Then again, distances between the countries of Southasia have always taken much longer to travel across than the actual kilometres would seem to require.