A large majority of people in Northeast India feel that the BCIM economic corridor connecting India and China through Bangladesh and Myanmar will benefit the region's economy and help it tackle an endemic insurgency problem by providing viable livelihoods.
This has been the finding of a survey conducted by the Guwahati-based Centre for Environment Social and Policy Research (CESPR).
The proposed corridor will cover 1.65 million square kilometres, encompassing an estimated 440 million people in China's Yunnan Province, Bangladesh, Myanmar and India through a combination of road, water and air linkages in the region.
According to the CESPR finding, 86 percent of surveyed people said India should agree to open the BCIM highway starting from Kolkata and passing through Bangladesh and the north-eastern Indian states of Assam and Manipur.
The survey was conducted among 300 informed respondents drawn from political parties, bureaucracy, academia and media, covering all the seven states of the region.    ?bdnews24.com