Development / Northeast

Guwahati, May 6: International organisations active in the field of community forests, under the aegis of Community Forestry International (CFI), are working on a project to support the development of effective policies and programmes enabling communities to manage forest lands in the Northeast.

The partner institutions in the project are the regional centre of the National Afforestation and Eco Development Board and the North Eastern Hill University. The project, being funded by the John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation, will end in 2005. The CFI assists rural communities to stabilise and...

GUWAHATI, May 2— The problems of land alienation and their non-restoration, indebtedness, tribal forest rights, development of forest villagers and shifting cultivators, need to give effect to the provisions of Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996, involuntary displacement due to development projects and lack of proper rehabilitation, rehabilitation of displaced and disabled tribals, survival, protection and development of the primitive tribal groups and effective and meaningful implementation of the strategy of Tribal Sub-Plan have by and large remained unattended to in...

GUWAHATI, May 1 —North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd. signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Power, Government of India setting out targets to be achieved during the year 2003 – 2004.

Considering the envisaged load demand in the North Eastern Region, a generation of 2075 MU against Hydro Projects at 85% machine availability and 2060 MU against Thermal Projects at 86% machine availability has been assessed for the Corporation to achieve during the year besides other milestones. The MoU also envisages commissioning of Kopili Hydro Electric Project – Stage-II...

MOREH(Manipur-Myanmar border) April 30 —The bilateral relations with Myanmar has significantly improved due to certain initiatives taken by the Ministry of External affairs. “We are pleased to note this achievement”, Manipur Chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh said. The initiatives should, however, be carried forward to enable the North Eastern States to draw benefits from the trade with the South East Asian countries through, Moreh, international trade centre in Manipur bordering Myanmar.

What the Chief Minister said during his address in the 50th meeting of the National Development Council...

NEW DELHI, April 30 — In an adverse comment on the functioning of the north-eastern State Governments, a study group in North-east appointed by the Central Government has confirmed that huge development funds continued to be siphoned off in the region. Alarmed by the reports pouring from the State about misuse of developmental funds and to put a check on siphoning of the funds, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) appointed a study group. It has since submitted its first set of recommendations, revealed the Minister of State for Home Affairs, LD Swami in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

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IMPHAL, April 29 – The Central government will be launching a new project for having double lane on the National Highway-53, connecting Imphal with Silchar. The Union Surface and Transport Minister has given an assurance to this effect. India’s National Highways connecting Myanmar (formerly Burma) through the north-eastern states, particularly Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Assam, have been reduced to targets of the lawful and unlawful organisations. The NHs passing through Manipur are the lifelines for the people of this State which borders western Myanmar.All essential commodities are...

NEW DELHI, April 22 — The clamour for additional funds by the north-eastern States notwithstanding, the Department of Development of the North-eastern Region (DoNER) has sanctioned less than 50 per cent of the cost of the sanctioned projects indicating that release out of the Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) were far less than accruals to the pool. What is perhaps more startling was the fact that as opposed to the mandatory release of the 10 per cent of the gross budgetary support (GBS) for the north-eastern region (NER), some Central ministries and departments have been able to...

NEW DELHI, April 21 — In a development having wider ramifications for Assam, the Central Government, as part of its broader plan on inter-linking major river basins under Himalayan Component of National Perspective, envisages inter-linking of major tributaries of Brahmaputra river with Teesta and Ganga. Divulging this, Union Minister of State for Water Resources Bijoya Chakraborty in a written reply in Lok Sabha said that according to the feasibility studies carried by National Water Development Agency (NWDA), Manas and Sankosh, both tributaries of river Brahmaputra, are proposed to be linked...

NEW DELHI, April 18 — Launching of massive marketing campaign to promote North Eastern Region (NER) as a tourist destination, contradict the performance of the Tourism Ministry, as funds allocated for the Region for development and promotion of tourism go unutilised during the last financial year. The Departments of Tourism and the Region’s State Governments seem yet to wake up from the intertia, as funds go waste but no perceptible improvement on the ground so much so that exercises to fully explore the tourism potential of the region are yet to be undertaken.

The Department of Tourism has...

New Delhi, April 16: Loss-making public sector units under the department for development of the northeastern region (Doner) could soon be put through a stringent reform process to transform them into financially viable enterprises.

The units that are suffering losses include the Northeastern Regional Agriculture Marketing Corporation, Northeastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation and the Sikkim Mining Corporation.

Union minister C.P. Thakur, who is in charge of Doner, said his department could not afford to let things drift. “Doner may face a shortage of funds in view of the...