Sittwe: The Sittwe Port in western Burma will be constructed by the India Maritime Company in 2010 after a contract with another company was canceled by the Burmese military regime, reports a local journal.

An engineer from Sittwe confirmed the report and said that the project will begin in the near future under the India Maritime Company.

The Burmese military junta agreed to construct the port in order to develop the region with the help of the funding from the Indian government in the amount of 120 Million US Dollars.

The project is scheduled to take three years, beginning in 2010 and ending in 2012.

A resident from Sittwe said the authority has selected a site for the port on the Kaladan River east of the Sittwe general hospital.

If the project is implemented at the selected location, many residents will have to be relocated from the area.

According to a local source, people in Sittwe have become increasingly concerned since authorities decided to locate the port in a residential area of the city.

The development of the port is part of the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transportation Project that has been envisioned to facilitate the movement of cargo vessels from Mizoram to Sittwe via the Kaladan River.

Sittwe is located 250 kilometers from the Indian border on the northwest coast of Burma, where the Kaladan River joins the Bay of Bengal.

The project involves three components - building the port, making the Kaladan River navigable up to the Indian state Mizoram, and developing highway connectivity from the Indian border in Mizoram.