GUWAHATI, Dec 26— Assam government today took strong exception to the statement made by Union Minister for Department of Development of North eastern Region (DONER) Arun Shourie that the Centre would consider the request for a ‘special development package’ for North East provided peace was restored in the region. The statement made by Shourie here yesterday has evoked sharp reaction from the Assam government. Minister of State for Planning and Development Himanta Biswa Sharma who claimed to be speaking on behalf of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, today informed that the State government would dash a letter to the DONER seeking clarification as to whether Shourie’s statement was for mere public consumption or a policy statement of Government of India.
‘Assam government believes that peace can’t be a precondition for development rather its development that will usher in peace in the disturbed State,” Sharma said expressing government’s concern over DONER’s bid to put peace as a precondition to release development package for the region. ‘If the Government of India believes that peace should precede development then why has it granted thousands of crores of rupees as special assistance to Jammu and Kashmir where peace has remained a far cry,’ he added. The Assam government’s stand is that the responsibility of restoring peace in the State which is ravaged by secessionist movements, doesn’t lie only with the State as the question of the country’s sovereignty is involved. The State government is very concerned that lion’s share of its revenue goes into fighting militants even as the Centre has failed to accept its demand for reimbursement of entire expenditure incurred by it to fight insurgency.
The Planning and Development Minister called for a change of attitude on part of the Centre for expediting development in the State. ‘The State is suffering after being deprived of about Rs 1000 crore by the 11th Finance Commission while no permanent formula has been worked out to ensure periodic and automatic revision of the rate of royalty on crude oil extracted from the State,’ he said. Contesting the observation of Shourie that Assam government had mostly submitted some ‘scrap papers’ as projects for seeking fund from DONER, Sharma pointed out that some of the projects submitted by Assam were prepared in a better way that many of projects prepared by Central government agencies. He pointed out that organisations like World Bank and Asian Development Bank had agreed to fund projects prepared by State government.
‘As a matter of fact, DONER hasn’t been very useful for expediting development, the purpose for which it was created, in the region. So far, the Ministry has sanctioned only Rs 16 crore for two projects in Assam since its inception as against a large number of projects submitted by the State’, Sharma informed. Meanwhile, the Chief Minister was preparing to send a letter to the DONER to base all the four 50-seater ATR-42 aircrafts, which are financed by the NEC for increasing connectivity within the region, in Guwahati airport instead of Kolkata. The Assam government doesn’t see any justification in making Kolkata airport the main base for the aircrafts exclusively meant for North-eastern region.