Namrup finally smiles

The Union Budget for 2025-26 has allocated Rs 5,915 crore for the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region, which is a 47 percent increase from the previous year’s allocation. The budget initiatives that promise to provide a much-needed boost to the overall economy of the Northeast include enhanced regional connectivity, a focus on smaller airports, and support for MSMEs and tourism.  Other initiatives that will indirectly benefit the North-eastern region include enhanced connectivity for the region, under the UDAN - the regional connectivity scheme. There is a focus on smaller airports and helipads in hilly and remote districts to boost regional air travel, with a target to carry four crore passengers in the next ten years. Provision for an additional 0.5 percent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) borrowing on the other hand will allow the North-eastern states in particular to implement electricity distribution and augment intra-state transmission, and it is expected to improve energy availability and reliability in the region. An increase in the number of seats in medical colleges, IITs and other higher education institutions will also have an impact on the region, while at least ten districts of the region are expected to be covered under the Prime Minister Dhan-Dhanya Krishi Yojana. With the overall law-and-order situation in the Northeast undergoing a tremendous positive transformation in the past decade, the development of tourism in the Northeast will also benefit from the new budget, particularly with Sitharaman laying a special emphasis on Buddhist tourism circuits in the region. The biggest gift of the Union Budget, however, is the revival package for the Namrup fertilizer factory, with Sitharaman announcing the decision to establish a new fertilizer factory there with an annual production capacity of 12.7 lakh metric tonnes of urea. Namrup, where the country’s first natural gas-based fertilizer factory was set up despite Nehru’s initial hesitation in the wake of the Chinese aggression of 1962, was a case that was hanging for over twenty years now, with one government after the other only making hollow promises that led it to nowhere. With the announcement of a new urea plant there, the fate of Namrup has come back from what the paper mill at Jagiroad had experienced till one year ago. With Jagiroad already beginning to see the first rays of sunshine, it is now for Namrup to smile.