Sitharaman’s visit

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s four-day visit to Meghalaya, which concluded on Sunday, must be viewed as a historic one, especially because there is no record available to show that any Union Finance Minister had ever spent so much time at a stretch in any state of the Northeastern region. The only exception was when practically the whole cabinet of Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda had spent one whole week in the region in 1997. Sitharaman, who is known for her keen interest in the tribal communities of the Northeast, had, during her four-day trip, visited several places in Meghalaya and interacted with a large cross-section of people. Her activities in the state, also known as ‘Abode of the Clouds,’ included the inauguration of a Rs 100-crore modern shopping mall in Shillong, chairing a Northeast roundtable meeting on the Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme, inspection of the redeveloped Umiam Lake, unveiling a MICE-cum-cultural hub and a 40,000-seat football stadium at Mawkhana, virtually inaugurating 75 digital libraries, laying the foundation stone for four working women’s hostels in Shillong, Jowai, Byrnihat, and Tura, and unveiling the Meghalaya Film Tourism Policy 2025, which aims at making the state a prime shooting location. Other central ministers should also take a cue from Sitharaman and spend more time in the region in order to help remove regional disparity. A one-day or two-day visit, and meeting only the minister and officers, does not help.