DIMAPUR, Sept 24 - Following wide-ranging discussions during the two-day 4th North East Connectivity Summit in Kohima, Deputy Secretary General, FICCI, Arun Chawla released the �Nagaland Declaration� for connectivity-led development of the North East region.
As per the declaration, the Summit, which concluded last night, felt the need to create a North East Implementation Agency to ensure timely completion of projects, including development of roads and highways, inland water transport, power, airports, etc., and a high powered North East Economic Forum for synchronising planning and efforts for development of the North East with connectivity.
It also announced implementation of North East Ring Road which would cover a distance of 4,000 km and will run parallel to international borders, connectivity-led infrastructure revolution in the North East to attract investment and internal infrastructure of a State including roads, bridges and amenities.
Around 200 delegates from industry, Government agencies, multilaterals and international missions from across the globe participated in the Summit.
Ministry of Ethnic Affairs & Parliament of e-Government Committee, Myanmar, Mandalay, Sai Kyaw Zaw, in his speech, said Ethnic Affairs Union Minister�s office was opened to promote and look into the ethnic groups� culture, education and health. Apart from Manipur, people from Mizoram are visiting Myanmar to promote their cultural and business relations, he said and invited Nagaland Government and businessmen to visit Myanmar for cultural and business relations.
Stating that such Summit gives us the idea of the potential of the North East�s culture, Lok Sabha MP from Assam Gaurav Gogoi, in his address, said the role of administration, industry and entrepreneurs is very important to connect to other parts of the neighbouring States and countries.
In his valedictory address, Nagaland Chief Secretary Pankaj Kumar said the North East Connectivity Summit has provided a very useful platform for Government of India and North East region, State Governments, neighbouring countries, national and international organisations, private sector organisations having interest in development of the region to come together and pass ideas, perspectives and expertise network in the informal time space to take North East connectivity to the next level.
Many corporate houses, multilaterals and banks showed keen interest to work with the Government of Nagaland and in the region for development of various connectivity issues. While Embassy representatives from Russia and Japan suggested a number of areas of cooperation, the Indian companies like Axis Bank proposed to adopt 20 villages in Nagaland for financial literacy.
The Summit saw representation from top corporate houses including banking, aviation, energy, transport, etc. There were international representations from Myanmar, Japan, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Laos, Russia and Thailand.
The 5th North East Connectivity Summit will be held at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh in 2018.
