In April 2017, India handed over the operation of completed Sittwe port and Inland Water Terminal at Paletwa to Myanmar. In April 2017, the Sittwe port and IWT Paletwa jetty were ready and operational. Due to construction of this hydro electrical projects, navigation of boats could be effected. That the first two projects are being built by one public sector undertaking and the third is being constructed by another PSU (Public Sector Unit) has also led to coordination issues. Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project initially faced problems such as underestimation of the road length in Myanmar and plans to construct hydro-electric projects - Chhimtuipui River and Lungleng River - on two tributaries of the Kaladan River followed by another project downstream. Construction work on Sittwe port and the boat jetty in Paletwa, as well as the dredging work, will be executed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), with Essar Projects Ltd, a division of the Essar Group appointed in May 2010 as the main contractor. The preliminary feasibility studies were carried out by Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES). The project is being piloted and funded by the Ministry of External Affairs (India). However, Bangladesh has consistently refused to grant such rights, including access to its Chittagong port, which is less than 200 km (120 mi) away from Agartala, the capital of Tripura. Initially India had tried to persuade Bangladesh to offer transport and transit rights to the northeastern states. This project will reduce distance from Kolkata to Sittwe by approximately 1,328 km (825 mi) and will reduce the need to transport goods through the narrow Siliguri corridor, also known as Chicken's Neck. Paletwa is less than 20 km (12 mi) from the Bangladesh border. Among these the ARSA, created by Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba and has links with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen in Bangladesh and the Indian Mujahideen in India, was behind the mass killing of Hindu Burmese Indians in the Kha Maung Seik massacre. The route of the project around Paletwa and along the Kaladan river is troubled with Chin conflict, Rohingya conflict and militant groups such as Arakan Army and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). Originally, the project was scheduled to be completed by 2014, but end-to-end project is expected to be fully operational only by March 2023 as per March 2021 update. All components of the project, including Sittwe port and power, river dredging, Paletwa jetty, have been completed, except the under construction Zorinpui-Paletwa road. In Myanmar, it will then link Sittwe seaport to Paletwa in Chin State via the Kaladan river boat route, and then from Paletwa by road to Mizoram state in Northeast India. The Kaladan Road Project is a US$484 million project connecting the eastern Indian seaport of Kolkata with Sittwe seaport in Rakhine State, Myanmar by sea.
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