Arunachal Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein Seeks State-Specific Requirements From Centre

Our Correspondent

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein placed the state-specific requirements before union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her junior Anurag Thakur, to be incorporated in the union budget 2019-20.

While attending the pre-budget consultation meeting at New Delhi on Friday, Mein said that the people of Arunachal Pradesh have great expectations and hope of achieving their dreams in financial inclusion and in development of infrastructure in various sectors, including strengthening of security forces, awarding suitably for being a carbon sink State, providing alternative funding in lieu of externally aided funds and many more.

Mein who also holds the finance portfolio further added that the State does not receive the share of central taxes as per the amount earmarked in the union budget by the Centre which is also not as per the recommendation of Fourteen Finance Commission, an official communique informed here on Sunday. He requested the Finance Minister to allocate the share of Central taxes as earmarked in the Union Budget.

While informing that there are still 805 unbanked villages and 35 unbanked blocks out of 114 blocks which need to be brought under the banking services, “target oriented directions have to be issued to all the financial institutions to increase agriculture credit to the farmers and also to increase priority sector lending so as to benefit the unemployed youth and deprived people”, he said.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that required connectivity need to be provided in the State by mobile service providers like BSNL and sought the active intervention of the Centre.

Citing health and education as priority sectors, Mein said “additional investment of Rs 6,000 crore is required to upgrade and develop the infrastructure of all health centres, hospitals, institutes, training centres, hostel and accommodation facilities including that of the Tomo Riba Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (TRIHMS), the only Medical Institute in the state with a hospital of 300 bed capacity”.

He added that a tertiary care cancer treatment centre is proposed to be made operational at TRIHMS this year.

He also stressed on the need to establish an ayurvedic medical college and one pharmaceutical college in the state and to consider funding for establishment of one AIIMS like autonomous institution in the State.

In the education sector, the Deputy Chief Minister sought an special assistance of Rs 1,349.13 crore with budgetary provisions in the up-coming union budget specifically for development of educational infrastructures (including retro fittings) in order to improve the education scenario and bridge all the necessary gaps, the communique added.

Also Read: Arunachal Deputy CM Chowna Mein Opens State Bank of India Branch In Arunachal