NEW DELHI, Aug 3 - The Resident Commissioners of Northeastern States based in the national capital recently decided to develop an aide memoir and submit it to the Prime Minister for expediting the Government of India�s North East agenda.
The brainstorming session convened by Resident Commissioner of Nagaland, Dr DK Bhalla deliberated on different policies and options for the development of North East.
On the top of the agenda of the meeting was the precarious financial position of the NE States. Most of the Northeastern States are deficient in the generation of monetary resources and the meeting explored various possibilities as to how the States could be made more self-sufficient so that they don�t have to only depend upon Central funding for various activities. It surfaced in the discussion that there could be a possibility, under which all corporate houses may be mandated to spend their CSR funds for developmental activities in NE States.
The meeting discussed that the 15th Finance Commission should be requested to keep the NE States as natural sink for the rest of nation and hence NE Region should be given even higher devolution of funds.
NE States are known for their flora and fauna and bio- diversity. These can be used for revenue generation by developing tourism activities in a sustainable way without disturbing ecosystem of the area. Tourism can be of various varieties like medical tourism, golf tourism, anthropological tourism, ecological tours and adventure-tourism. These tourism projects can be planned on PPP model, under which the State Governments can put in their share by providing land and other natural resources and private players in collaboration with Government of India can infuse capital resources for projects.
On the job creation front, the issue that was raised by the Resident Commissioners was for bringing various mega projects to the region and various strategies to fund small projects on farming sector and horticulture.
