After stirring up the hornet’s nest with his controversial statement wherein he expressed a wish that the government of India “do away with Article 371(A)” NDPP Lok Sabha member Tokheho Yepthomi said he made the remark only to “provoke the minds of fellow citizens, in respect of its misuse in matters of development activities.
The ruling NDPP organisation had earlier, also sharply reacted against Tokheho’s remark and reaffirmed its commitment to Article 371(A) and also distanced itself from his remarks made at an event in Chümoukedima. “The views are only my personal and does not reflect those of the NDPP or its leadership,” Tokheho said in a statement Sunday.
Reacting to the NDPP rejoinder, Tokheho further clarified that he had not made any comment on the ongoing political negotiation in relation to Article 371(A) nor was his intention to dilute Article 371(A) when negotiations were at a crucial stage. He pointed out that at the recent event at Chümoukedima, he had expressed his view about the lack of development in Nagaland due to alleged misuse of Article 371(A).
“For those who are of the opinion that Article 371(A) in no way impedes the development of our state and that corruption is the only cause of our state’s inability to develop, then corruption has to stop first and foremost with the voter,” he said.
To relate his remarks, Tokheho pointed out that all the North Eastern states have either upgraded their airports to international standards and that states which did not have airports before, were now having fully functional modern airports that are capable of handling international flights.
Tokheho however said lands within Nagaland’s lone airport in Dimapur have been encroached, for which expansion or upgradation of the airport, to be at par with most modern airports around the country, has been completely ruled out. Moreover, he said the district administration over the years had just “stood as mere spectator to the land encroachments.” This was also a primary reason why the state government has for years pursued an alternate airport (Ciethu) in Kohima, he stated.
Further, Tokheho recalled that recently, the Prime Minister virtually inaugurated 508 railway stations in India on August 6, 2023 to be upgraded to world class stations.
He said Dimapur Railway station alone has been allotted Rs.208 crores for the station development but the “ugly head of land encroachers has not spared even the railway land at Dimapur.”
While pointing out that a very large portion of railway land had been encroached upon, he alleged that the District Administration had never tried to evict land encroachers, as all encroachers cite Article 371(A).
On issue of oil, he said Assam was extracting oil from 28 oilfields from Assam-Nagaland border. He disclosed that Government of India has upgraded the following refineries– Numaligarh 3 MMT to 9 MMT (Million Metric Tons); Digboi 0.50 MMT to 1 MMT; Guwahati 1 MMT to 2 MMT and New Bagaigaon 2.35 MMT to 5 MMT.
He noted that the total production of all the refineries was 6.85 MMT before upgradation which generated Rs. 18,000 crores for the State of Assam in the last 10 years. After upgradation of all oil refineries in Assam the capacity has more than doubled to 17 MMT which will roughly generate approximately Rs. 44,000 crores in ten years for Assam.
On the contrary, he said the people of Nagaland cite Article 371(A) and refuse to allow extraction of oil because land its resources belong to the people.
“Will we extract oil when the world has not use of it because most of the world is now moving to clean and renewable sources of energy?” he asked. He also cited the case of the Dimapur-Kohima 4 lane as the biggest example of the misuse of Article 371(A). He said due to the Article, the government had to negotiate with every single land owner from Dimapur to Kohima for land acquisition, which took nearly 10 years just to acquire the land.
He said had it been in other states, the need of public prevailed over the want of a few individuals. The MP said that in other states land acquisition for public infrastructure is never a problem because the government of the day does not have to negotiate and convince every person. In this yet named Assam as the best example where landowner issues are never a cause of impediment for public infrastructure development by government.