Aruchal integral part of India: Tuki

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itagar, March 26: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister bam Tuki has described the sensitive border state of Aruchal Pradesh as an integral part of India whose holistic development began after announcement of a huge economic package by the Prime Minister in January 2008 to make it a front ranking state.

Addressing the two-day semir on ‘Voices from Aruchal:  India-Chi Border Problem and related Aruchal Folklore’, here on Wednesday, Tuki said that Aruchal Pradesh stands tall along the eastern borders as the sentinel of the country. “While Hindi is the lingua franca of the state, people living even in the remotest corner of the state exchange the salutation ‘Jai Hind’ with each other – a testimony of our fierce patriotism for India,” he said. “Though a late starter in the journey of development, we have come a long way witnessing many highs and lows from the NEFA days to the present stage. Starting our first Five Year Plan period with a meager plan allocation of only Rs 3 crores our plan expenditure last fiscal stood at Rs 4915 crore,” he said.

The development policy of the Centre towards Aruchal Pradesh was with a sense of caution till recently. However, announcement of PM’s economic package of about Rs. 33000 crore in the year 2008 by the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, changed the face of developmental trajectory of the state, the chief minister pointed out. “Communications like roads, railways, air and tele-communication have been given priority and Infrastructure development is holistically taken up. We have devised programmes and policies to make Aruchal Pradesh a front runner in the days to come,” he said. “Because of physical and psychological distance, the indigenous folklores, customs and traditions have remained elusive to study and research. Some vital work has been documented by some researchers such as Heimendorf etc. I would attribute the communication bottleneck for the harsh geographical terrains as the major hurdles for which these important aspects of ours remained unstudied and undocumented,” he observed.  With roads and tele-communication reaching far flung interior villages, it has now become very easy for the researchers, scholars and enthusiasts to study and document the rich unexplored treasured folklores of distinct communities and tribes of Aruchal Pradesh which is in abundance, the chief minister stressed.