STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) G Kishan Reddy said on Saturday that the North-East region has entered its 'Amrit Samay' and it is the need of the hour to take complete advantage of this and utilize all possibilities of growth and development.
Addressing senior officials from the eight North-eastern States and Central ministries at the 70th plenary meeting of the North Eastern Council (NEC) in the city, Kishan Reddy said that the Centre has been working relentlessly to establish peace and stability and enhance connectivity in the region and have attained considerable success as well. Stating that it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strong belief that India cannot develop without development of the North-East Region, Reddy impressed upon the officers that the goal of making the North-East the growth engine of India can be reached only with complete coordination between the Centre and state governments.
The Union Minister further said that all stakeholders - Centre, states and private sector - need to work jointly and focus on further enhancing infrastructure and connectivity in the region. Reddy said that complete and targeted utilization of the 10% Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for the North-eastern states is the key to rapid development. Regular analysis of 10% GBS utilization needs to be done and accordingly, reorienting of policies, overcoming data bottlenecks and coordination with Central line ministries must be ensured, he added. Reddy urged all State government officers to provide their recommendations, such as amending policies, guidelines etc., to ensure effective utilization.
He said that an Agri Task Force, which was recently constituted, will soon release its final report and added that the task force's findings must be leveraged to ensure complete utilization in the ongoing financial year.
The Union Minister also suggested that there is a need to conduct a "strengths and weaknesses analysis" and identify gaps in key sectors as such a step would help in more targeted developmental initiatives. He further said that while selecting project factors regarding district-wise Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) index and aspirational districts, connectivity to rural habitations and areas and level of poverty indices should be taken into consideration. He urged the officials to ensure good tendering norms and robust monitoring.
Dwelling on the tourism potential of the region, Reddy informed that the Ministry of DoNER will constitute a Tourism Task Force to ensure realization of complete potential of the region. He said that developing tourism infrastructure, skilling and capacity building are the core priorities for developing tourism in the region
He also highlighted that the potential offered by security services industry must be explored to generate employment among the youth in the North-East.
The Minister emphasised the need for private investment. He said that Central and state governments need to jointly work to develop an investment-friendly environment in the North-East. He suggested that a few top-priority/target sectors need to be identified and work should be initiated for increasing investment potential of the region and overcoming bottlenecks in those sectors.
The Minister said that a Global Investors Summit for the North-East should be organized soon and all state governments should start undertaking measures for developing an investor-friendly ecosystem. Various measures such as changing the policies to suit the needs of investors, digitizing land banks, having plot-level information, simplifying processes, providing single window clearance system, developing inventory of readily investible projects, establishing an investors' facilitation centre in each state, investing on supporting infrastructure like approach roads, power connectivity, water supply etc., must be undertaken, he added.
Reddy called upon the senior officers to create an action plan for the Global Investors Summit in the coming months.
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