Governor of Nagaland, Assam and Tripura, P.B. Acharya who attended the two-day 64th Meeting of the North East Council (NEC) on April 9-10 at New Delhi, highlighted various issues faced by the North Eastern states.
Acharya highlighted that the Non-Lapsable accumulated funds of the NEC was nearly Rs. 12,000 crore. “We have to work-out how best we can utilise this for the development of the North Eastern States”, he said. Despite NEC sanctioning about Rs.100 crore per year per State, Acharya said: “this was too inadequate and our focus should mainly be on infrastructure, electricity and education. Development is possible only when there is good road connectivity”.
Highlighting the importance of proper implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission initiatives, he said it was imperative to make the State clean to help boost tourism, improve health and contribute to the development of the State.
On Jan Dhan Yojana, Governor pointed out that unless the down trodden people get empowered, the society would not get empowered. “Minimum 5 persons must get enrolled in JDY by the Universities/Colleges, etc.”, he added. He also proposed Public Sector Undertakings, Universities and Colleges to adopt villages by way of providing various amenities under Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
Asserting that: “NER underdeveloped is India underdeveloped”, Acharya said developmental gaps of NER, which had been an issue for a long time, should be tackled and addressed with appropriate strategies and policies.
He also stressed on the need to have a productive strategy to reap gains from International Trade and Border trade in the region. “There is urgent need to reorient the strategy and policy for NER according to the Region’s endowment”, he said.
On education, Acharya said India has four challenges in terms of four Es– Expansion, Equity, Excellence and Employability.
He stressed on the need “to reach the unreached and include the excluded in a continuous sustained manner, improve Excellence, put more money into research, to get much more done in that”. With regard to the fourth E- Employability, that many don’t talk about enough, Acharya said “we to make sure that people actually can come out of the education system, that the economy needs and that the employer needs”.
He was of the view that the Universities start continuous interaction with trade, industry and commerce of our areas and address the availability of nature given raw materials/wealth to create more wealth to make use of them by introducing supplementary courses taking into account the law of supply and demand.
He also felt the need of Regional Education Institutes in NER which can be upgraded to impart quality education. He said skill/vocational educational institutes should also be upgraded and strengthened for the unemployed youth of the region.
“There is need for supplementing our present curriculum with some purposeful skill to the youth and implement credit framework for skills and choice based credit system in Universities and Colleges”, he said.
The Governor suggested for an independent empowered Committee to be constituted by DoNER with representation from NE States and other parts of the country in order to organize cultural programmes in a more holistic manner.