Rijiju extols NDA government's successes

From our correspondent

Itanagar, May 26: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju today extolled the work done by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre during its one year of rule, ranging from rejuveting the economy to initiatives for the poor. Addressing the party workers at the one year celebration of the NDA regime here this morning, Rijiju while lauding the people of the state for providing him the opportunity to serve them said that his priority was not only to bring development in the land-locked state but also to initiate measures to preserve its identity. “The lost glory of this sensitive border state need to be revived and my priority is on development and creating a unique identity of the state in the mainland India,” he said. Stating that after being inducted as the union minister, he tried to convince several ministries and as a result developmental packages have been provided to the state as well as to the entire North East region. “Implementation of central schemes will not be successful if the state government is not serious and committed,” he said. He said the NDA government was working to bring back the degrading economy to the track and root out corruption.

On security of NE people in various parts of the country, he claimed that he had implemented the Bezbarooah Committee report and accordingly opened helplines in all metros besides constituting groups comprising students from the region to help students in distress. “Steps have been taken to incorporate chapters of North East in the syllabus of school textbooks across the country. Recommendation has been made to CBSE and UGC to work in this direction and the process already started,” he disclosed. In order to tap the sporting talents of the region, he said, the Centre has already proposed to establish the North East Sports University at Imphal in Manipur. Moreover, to hone the talents of Aruchal Pradesh, the tiol Film and Television Institute had been approved for the state, works for which already started.

“The union cabinet recently approved creation of two new battalion of NDRF in addition to the existing 10 in the country. The two battalions comprising 1200 personnel each, will have its headquarters in Aruchal Pradesh and Varasi respectively,” he said and added that he had asked Chief Minister bam Tuki to provide land for establishment of the battalion to help the disaster-prone state. To recruit youths from north east in central forces, he said, the home ministry had already relaxed certain criteria including height and chest of the candidates.

“My ministry also proposed to recruit ten males and females each from every NE state except Assam annually in Delhi Police as a long-term policy. In case of Assam, the number of male and female candidate will be 20 each,” he informed adding, a frontier headquarter of SSB had been approved at Tezpur in Assam while, the IGP (CISF) had already been shifted to Guwahati from Kolkata to look after the NE states.

“In order to woo foreign tourists to Aruchal, the Home Ministry has relaxed PAP norms in some selected tourist circuits in the state and tourists can visit any time with permission from the local authorities,” he disclosed adding, 37 extra border out posts (BOPs) have been sanctioned for the state.

Referring to various infrastructure projects sanctioned by the Centre for Aruchal during one year, Rijiju said that Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari had recently laid the foundation of 6000 crore road projects in the state besides giving approval for the industrial corridor road from Bhairab kund in Tawang to Ruksin in East Siang district.

“The union RD ministry has already relaxed the population criteria for Aruchal for implementation of the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yoja (PMGSY) scheme, while an amount of Rs 3000 crore has been allocated to the state under telecommunication sector,” he disclosed. He said, an amount of 5000 crore for Aruchal and Sikkim has been sanctioned for power transmission projects above 132 KV and survey for the project has already began. “I want my people not to dependent on other and accordingly opportunities have been provided,” he added.