NEW DELHI, May 22 � Union Minister of State (Independent charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Dr Jitendra Singh today convened a meeting here of senior intelligence officers of the Government of India and security experts to discuss new innovative security initiatives which could be undertaken in the North-east with a view to successfully accomplishing the developmental plans and projects in the region.
The meeting was attended by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval; Chairman Joint Intelligence Committee RN Ravi; Director Intelligence Bureau Dineshwar Sharma; ex-DG BSF EN Rammohan; ex-DG ITBP and CRPF Vikram Srivastava; Dr Satyapal Singh, IPS (retd) Member of Parliament and Vishnu Dayal Sharma, IPS (retd) Member of Parliament.
The DoNER Minister said the idea to hold such a meeting was inspired by the realisation that developmental works undertaken by the Government of India in the North-east could achieve their optimum utility and progress only in the presence of a compatible security environment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself taken keen interest in all the issues related to the North-east and today�s security-related meeting was also inspired and encouraged by him, Dr Singh added.
There were certain issues and problems peculiar to the North-east, said Dr Singh, and therefore these required to be dealt with exclusively. He referred to a number of suggestions which had emerged in relation to improving the security scenario in the region. These included the suggestions for modernisation of the police as well as �police modernisation grant� for the north-eastern states and re-deployment in the region of the existing forces like Assam Rifles and ITBP.
Although the issues per se pertained to the Ministry of Home Affairs, but since these had a strong bearing on developmental activities, the economy and �Act East Plan�, the DoNER Ministry had taken upon itself the exercise to study and gather relevant security inputs and place them before the authorities concerned and the Ministry of Home Affairs for their perusal, the DoNER Minister said.
A number of suggestions were also made from the point of view of identifying trade corridors intra-regionally among the north-eastern states as well as with the countries across the eastern borders and a suggestion for �integrated� checkposts was also put forward for consideration.
Alienation of the people, leading to agitations and road blockades affected both the economy and developmental activity and therefore a blueprint was sought to be developed to deal with these related problems.
The meeting decided that very soon an exercise would be begun by identifying the most sensitive districts of the region from the security point of view and deliberating on the roadmap ahead through presentations by security officials working on the ground as well as by experts and security scholars who specialised in dealing with the North-east.
