The high powered committee recently had a meeting with the Chief Secretaries and other officials of the North-Eastern region in Guwahati and promised to set up more customs points in the region to promote border trade.
Mr. Sengupta informed that the post of Joint Director General of Foreign Trade in the region would be  upgraded to the post of Development Commissioner. The meeting took note of the need for better use and development of inland water transport facility in the region. In this regard, Mr. Sengupta informed that the Government of Assam had suggested to make night navigation facility in Brahmaputra operational  soon and declare Badarpur as a port of call. Regarding the scheme for development of critical infrastructure facilities like EPIP, the commerce secretary said that already Rs. 41 crore had been sanctioned for the  purpose out of which Rs. 11 crore had been released. The meeting also decided to go for intensive monitoring of implementation of the schemes under the guidance of the Chief Secretaries of North-Eastern states. The high powered committee had assured the State Governments  of the region to expedite setting up of border towns at Sutarkandi (Assam), Dawki (Meghalaya), Moreh (Manipur) and Zowkhathar (Mizoram).

In respect of standing demand for transit facility to Bangladesh through the North-Eastern region, the Union Commerce Secretary informed that the matter had been  taken up with Bangladesh and discussions continued.
When drawn to Union Cabinet’s decision to facilitate export limestone from Meghalaya to a Bangladesh cement plant to be set up by a French company, the Commerce Secretary informed that no final decision had been taken so far. The Cabinet decision was that the governments of Meghalaya and Bangladesh should discuss the matter at their level and details should be submitted to the Centre before arriving at a final decision.