JORHAT, Oct 29 - The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for DONER, Dr Jitendra Singh today laid the foundation stone for the STINER Centre at the CSIR-North East Institute of Science And Technology at Pulibor on the outskirts of the town.
The STINER centre will be set up with funding from the DONER Ministry under the project named Science And Technology Intervention in North-East Region.
The central technology facilitation centre of the project will be in CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat. The objective of the project is to disseminate the technologies developed by CSIR-NEIST to farmers and upcoming entrepreneurs of the region.
The Minister also laid the foundation stone online of the nodal centre of the project at the School of Agricultural Sciences and Rural Development (SASRD), Nagaland University at Medziphema (Nagaland) at the same function organised on the occasion.
In his address, Dr Singh said that his ministry has sanctioned Rs 50 crore for the project and assured of providing more funds in the future as per requirements.
Stating that the Narendra Modi-led government has been according top priority to the progress of the north-eastern region, he said that the Prime Minister has carried forward the process of development of the NE region started by former Prime Minister Late AB Vajpayee during whose tenure a separate ministry was opened for development of the north-eastern region.
The Minister said that Modi considered the region as �Ashta Lakshmi� (eight forms of the goddess of wealth) in view of richness of the region with natural resources.
Dr Singh said that the pace of development work in north-east region has increased in the past four years of the Modi-led government. He pointed out that Modi visited the region over 30 times in the past four years, which was much more than the sum total of visits of other former PMs to the north-east.
He added that the Union ministers too have been frequently visiting the region to take stock of the ongoing developmental works. The minister said that the Centre has initiated a plan to do away with infrastructure bottlenecks in NE region.
Apart from undertaking work of improving the road transport sector in the region, the Central government has initiated steps to develop the waterways with the Brahmaputra planned to be a leading waterway route, the Minister said, adding that one major advantage of water transportation was that it was cost-effective. Without taking the name of any past Central governments, Dr Singh took a swipe at the earlier governments for neglecting the region.
Jorhat MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, who too spoke at the function, heaped praises on the Prime Minister for giving much priority to the region and thanked Dr Singh for prompt response in sanctioning funds for projects for the north-eastern region.
Earlier, the acting director of CSIR-NEIST, Dr Samit Chattopadhyay gave the welcome address while Dr Mantu Bhuyan, Principal Scientist of the STINER project delivered the vote of thanks.
The DONER Ministry Joint Secretary SN Pradhan, NEC Secretary R Muivah, Vice-Chancellor of Nagaland University Dr Pardeshi Lal, Secretary of Research Council CSIR-NEIST Dr GN Qazi and former director of CSIR-NEIST Dr D Ramaiah were among the dignitaries who attended the function.