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The Fiftieth Meeting of the North Eastern Council (NEC) and the First Meeting of the re-constituted North Eastern Council was held here today by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Inaugurating the meeting, the Prime Minister said that development of human resources in North Eastern region should be given the highest priority.
Presiding over the meeting, the Minister of Tribal Affairs & Development of North Eastern Region (DONER), and Chairman of NEC Shri P.R. Kyndiah, said that the Government is making efforts to unfold the potential of resources such as petroleum, gas, downstream industries, bamboo, silk, medicinal herbs, minerals etc in the region.
“Proper development of these resources and sharing of the benefits in a regional frame would make the region surplus and the NE-States economically viable” the Minister stressed.
Shri Kyndiah further stated that the Council would draw up a well-charted Vision-Document that defines over a 15-year perspective, Council’s goals, strategies and thrust areas. Most important of all, its formulation would intimately involve the people from beginning to end and it would be essentially their vision put into shape by experts.
Pointing out that the Action Plan has been prepared fairly well and in time, the Minister said that “the way the formulation of the Vision Document has been proposed would ensure that it will be seen by the people as their own Plan to be implemented with Government support, and not the other way round”.
the Council would draw upon the talent and expertise already available in the region and in the country.
“Our endeavour in the first phase is to catalyse the processes through which the family income of the rural masses is enhanced. The first stage of value addition of local produce would be at the family level, the second stage at the community level and the next at the high investment factory”, he added.
Stating that we are in the transitional stage of transformation of an erstwhile advisory body into a statutorily empowered Regional Planning Body, Shri Kyndiah added that another important tasks would be to take up structural strengthening, functional rejuvenation and conceptual reorientation of the NEC.
AKS/rs
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