Nagaland governor, P. B. Acharya, has said that the opportunities for development and determination of the government should not be sabotaged by the greed and “petty desire” of the people.
Addressing media persons at Raj Bhavan here on Tuesday, the governor said mindset of the people was somewhere becoming an obstacle to any development project that comes to Nagaland.
Asserting that no public project should suffer because of individual greed, Acharya appealed to the people to change the mindset. He maintained that whenever there was a public cause, the people should think about contributing.
Commenting on Dimapur-Zubza railway line project, Acharya that said all efforts from the Railway Ministry was going well. The governor, however, regretted that a letter he received from “Dhansiri people” with around 25 signatories has refused to give land at the current compensation rate on the grounds that hill people were paid more than them per sq ft.
Stating that he has asked the chief minister to have a talk with them, Acharya said he would also convene a round table meeting with them along with the railway authorities.
On the medical college, governor said state government has already acquired land, but somewhere the government was not able to convince all the land holders to give the land for public purposes. He said with each passing day, a small number of people, landholders were asking for more and more land compensations. Because of this, the governor said the project was in standstill.
Maintaining that there were great expectations from the Angami community, the governor said they therefore needed to have a big heart and sacrifice little for the public as true Christians.
On the 33% women reservation in civic polls, the governor appealed to the state government to convince the people having different opinions on the reservation and conduct the election as early as possible.
On the March 5, 2015 incident, Acharya said the judicial team that was set up was yet to give its report. In this regard, the governor said he has asked the state government that if that was not acceptable, then new team should be set up, judges be appointed and come out openly and take strong action against the accused without any discrimination.
Further, Acharya said he has asked the state government to enact the Lokayukat Bill at the earliest since he has been receiving many complaints over the delay of the bill. He also informed that vigilance commission’s action should be more transparent and people should know what is happening.
On the ongoing Naga peace talks, governor said there was a hope that something concrete would come up in the “near future”. He appealed the other groups to join the peace talks.
The governor said Wockhardt Foundation from Mumbai was interested to share the development of Nagaland and willing to strengthen the government schools by introducing e-learning.
Disclosing that 28 schools have been identified to introduce the e-learning educational system, Acharya said the team would arrive next month.
Expressing his displeasure over the poor performance of the government schools, the governor said that there were more than 1600 government schools including primary schools yet he was not really happy about the results. He said that most of the achievers in class 10 and 12 were from private schools.
In spite of the state having four universities in the state, the governor said hundreds of students were outside Nagaland, which, he held needed to be given a thought.
Acharya also informed that the Art of Living centre from Bangalore and another centre from Mangalore were prepared to enter MoU to do work out on private and public enterprise on health, education and orphanage homes and said the targeted area was in ENPO area.
He said those agencies could go and establish their service units in the border areas, where “our own brothers across the border” who were denied of many facilities, could make good use of the institutions.
Lamenting the lack of monitoring of the central projects, he said it was not known whether the schemes were reaching the targeted people.
Asked about delay of releasing salaries to the teachers, he said though chief minister was working out since last year with sincerity, it has not able to achieve and said state government should speed up.
Acharya also informed that as committed by him during the Rengma Students’ Union conference on December 17 last, almost 99 % was complete for establishing Government College in Tseminyu sub-division.