Almost all the Northern Chief Ministers were unanimous on the point that the Centre must come forward in a big way to rescue of the North-Eastern region, which had been agog with numerous and diverse problems of its own. A demand for Centrally-sponsored schemes and a review of the funding pattern were strongly raised by the Chief Ministers. Minister for the Department of Development of North-East Region Arun Shourie, on his part, stressed the need of private sector investments for developments in the region. He assured that he would try to mobilise Central funds and to start with announced 100 per cent grants for irrigation schemes in the North-East. This, he said, could be gradually expanded to other Centrally sponsored schemes at a later stage. He, however, sternly asked warning to the Chief Ministers to plug large scale leakages of funds as highlighted repeatedly in CAG reports. He also announced Rs. 3.5 crore allocation for the North East Council (NEC) annually to subsidise air fare in the region. A five-seater aircraft is to be acquired within a week to improve air connectivity in the region with Guwahati. Chief Ministers of Assam, Tripura and Nagaland stressed the need to open up border routes for expansion of border trade with neighbouring countries such as Myanmar and Bangladesh as a step to resurrect the sagging economy of the North-Eastern states.

These views of the North-East Chief Ministers came to light during a conference of the Chief Ministers and Chief Secretaries of the NE states, which was attended by Central Minister Arun Shourie. The conference was held at Shillong on February 9 which followed the 46^th meeting of the North Eastern Council.All the Chief Ministers had a unanimous view on the issue of cross border terrorism. The Chief Ministers blamed Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan for giving free access to North-East terrorists to operate from their lands. “The same urgency should be shown in the North-East region as has been shown in dealing with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir,” opined the Chief Ministers of Assam, Nagaland Meghalaya and Tripura. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar was most critical of the Centre’s apathetic attitude in dealing on the issue with countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan. It may be recalled that Mr. Sarkar had submitted a list of terrorist organisations operating from Bangladesh and their hideouts to the Central Government in the recent past. However, Arun Shourie thought that the said meeting was not the proper forum to discuss militancy and foreign support as only development of the North-East was on the agenda. However the Tripura Chief Minister pointed out that one could not talk of development in the North-East without tackling the issue of militancy. On his part, Mr. Shourie promised to arrange a meeting of the Chief Ministers with Union Home Minister and External Affairs Minister on this issue.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Dr. F. A. Khonglam said that the North-Eastern states should come together towards accelerating the pace of development by coordinating the strengths and bridging the weakness. He called for an initiative for enabling adoption of best practices and methodologies for making best use of opportunities in each State. Proper and timely utilisation of funds and stress on grass-root level as also tackling the growing unemployment problem were highlights of Dr. Khonglam’s address.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi agreed to a common strategy with Meghalaya to tackle the insurgency problem. Recently, lot of cross border movement through Meghalaya by Assam based terrorists like the ULFA and the NDFB has been seen. He said that the difficult jungle terrain was making the complete stoppage to terrorist movement from Bhutan to Assam and Meghalaya a difficult task. He also described the 120 companies of CRPF in the State as inadequate and said that at least 180 companies were needed. Mr. Gogoi also agreed to take up the issue of Assam-Meghalaya border dispute with Dr. Khonglam. He also observed on the problem of unemployment as the root cause of all evils. “Adequate attention be paid to the service sector for generation of gainful employment,” opined Mr. Gogoi. He also asked the NEC to persuade the Planning Commission to step up resource flow substantially during the 10^th five-year Plan. Mr. Gogoi ridiculed the World Bank’s recent decision to back out from some vital projects in Assam for security reasons when it has already run a number of projects in the past without any complaints about security.

Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga supporting Mr. Gogoi also demanded that the Planning Commission should sanction funds for thrust areas like bamboo production in his State. “People are suffering due to lack of funds. The Centre should help us rather than always finding faults,” he said. He was also critical of the NEC saying that it was rejecting many ambitious projects, particularly in hydel power sector, by pointing the lame excuse that it is ‘not viable’. “Such negative stance will not argur well for the State,” opined the Mizoram Chief Minister.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Mukut Mithi also shared Zoramthanga’s view that the hydel power potentials in his State has not been tapped. “Out of the 4500 mw hydel power potential in Arunachal, only one-third has been tapped”, said the Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar felt that it was high time that issues like border fencing were taken up as such long porous border was creating serious problems. He called for a holistic approach towards tackling the complex problems of the North-East and opined that the NEC should at least get Rs. 1000 crore a year as funding. “Anything below this is insufficient”, he said. It may be mentioned here that at present the plan and non-plan budget of the NEC is Rs. 500 crore. He also asked the Centre to take concrete steps to make neighbouring countries close down militant hideouts or else gear up operation to smash them.

Mr. Arun Shourie was all ears to the issues raised by the Chief Ministers. He proposed an ideal development for the North-East region where there is preservation of wealth and more wealth is generated from within the society to bolster growth.

Magsaysay Award winner and expert on North-East B. G. Verghese also strongly voiced the need of opening up border trade with neighbouring countries. He said that a closed border, rather than solving problems, was creating more problems in the form of smuggling, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, etc. The meeting also discussed BSNL’s plan for connecting the capitals of the North-Eastern states and other important cities of the region as most advanced ‘optical fibre network’.
        
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