Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 23: Within 3 years of the Modi Government, Northeast was successfully brought into national focus, thus not only putting the development of the region on fast-track, but also effectively bridging the physical and psychological gap between Northeast and the rest of India.
Speaking at a media briefing at the National Media Centre here today, convened exclusively to highlight the achievements of last three years of the Modi Government, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, Northeast today can rightfully claim to be almost at par with the rest of the country.
On the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh also released a series of booklets highlighting the three years of achievements in the different departments under him.
The extent of priority accorded by the Modi Government to the Northeast is borne out by the fact that in the last three years, Prime Minister has made nearly a dozen visits to the Northeast and he has chosen the venue of Guwahati in Assam to address the public rally to commemorate the three years of Government on 26th of this month. Not only this, Narendra Modi was the first Prime Minister after Morarji Desai, in over 40 years, who visited Shillong to attend the Plenary Meeting of North Eastern Council (NEC), he added.
Statistically also, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the budget for Northeast received a hike of over 25% in these three years. While over Rs. 40,000 crores has been earmarked for road development, he said, a special region-based road corporation namely, “Northeast Road Development Scheme” was also launched to take care of the neglected and orphan roads in the region. While in the past, he said, some of the States like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh had never seen a train and were nowhere on the Rail map of India. Today, there is a broad-gauge rail track reaching all the States barring Sikkim in the next two years and the task of setting rail track from Tripura to Bangladesh has already been set-in. About air-connectivity, he said, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim are some of the States which did not have an airport so far, but the work of setting up of airports in both these States is moving ahead at a very fast pace.
The DoNER Ministry, Dr Jitendra Singh said, is not only funding construction of new hospitals but has also arranged tie-ups of the existing hospitals with the Tata Memorial Institute Mombai and the Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai.
Living up to its commitment to transparency and citizen centricity, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this is for the first time since the introduction of RTI in 2005, that all the 10 vacancies of Information Commissioners have been filled and RTI has been made available online for which a request can be submitted even from a mobile app from anywhere anytime of the day.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, India has emerged as frontline nation in Space technology and our inputs from Mangalyan and other space missions are now being utilized by the other countries in the region. Not only this, he said, we have brought Space Technology to every home by involving it in Smart City Plan, road construction and other civilian projects.
Similarly, in the area of Atomic Energy, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the greatest achievement is that India’s nuclear programme has also moved to North-wards and expanded in a big way and is also visible in Northern States including Haryana.
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