EMN
DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 4
WITH an objective to project the recent development made in the NE-region especially related to infrastructure and highlight the potential and upcoming opportunities, Planning Commission in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) organized a conference on ‘Infrastructure developments in the North East Region-leveraging opportunities’ on February 3-4 at Guwahati, Assam. The initiative was envisaged to trigger large scale economic activities in the North East by creating a ‘focus’ and ‘investors interest’ on the potential for participation in the North East markets. The programme has seen the participation of senior industry members based across the country and also business members from ASEAN countries.
The conference was addressed by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission, Paban Singh Ghatowar, minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of DoNER, Dr Saumitra Chaudhuri, member Planning Commission, Chandrajit Banerjee, director general CII, S Gopalakrishnan, president CII and co-founder and executive V/chairman Infosys Ltd and host of dignitaries including ministers from all NE states.
Speaking at the conference, Planning Minister, TR Zeliang, highlighted the state’s needs for air, rail & land connectivity and sought support of Planning Commission for a four lane iconic highway from north to south of Nagaland viz Tizit-Dimapur-Jalukie-Khelma and along with it the railway line.
The road beyond Tizit was proposed to be connected to the Trans Arunachal Highway at Khonsa and the road beyond Khelma to the East-West Highway which is starting from Dwarka to Silchar at Maipang.
In order to bring the Look East Policy in reality, he proposed for development of four important road namely Tizit to Longwa raod via Mon, NH-202 to Pangsha (Chendang Saddle-Noklak-Pangsha) road, NH-202 to Avankhu (from Akhegw to Avankhu) road and NH-202 (Akash bridge) to Kanjang-Reguri-Pansat (Myanmar).
The urgent need of having railway line from Tizit – Dimapur and Dimapur-Kohima was highlighted. Mentioning the requirement of Inter-state air connectivity in the region and with the other part of the country he stated, this would be in the interest of development of tourism potential in the region and providing a package travel to the tourist.
He also emphasised the need for providing transport subsidy to facilitate marketing of agricultural produces and further pointed out the problem of having common guidelines for implementation of CSS in the NE Region and proposed that the guidelines should be need-based.
On the funding pattern of CSS, he reiterated that the smaller states like NE states are facing problem to contribute the state share requirement of CSS programmes. Therefore he requested to bring all funding pattern of the CSS to 90:10 for NE states.
TR Zeliang led delegates from the state government assisted by Mhonbemo Patton, Commissioner & Secretary Planning, Benjamin, secretary Agriculture, Temsuwati, Addl. Development Commissioner, Planning and other host of officials from the line departments.
