Development / Northeast

GUWAHATI, March 1 ? Noted environment activist Medha Patkar today sounded all the North Eastern States to guard their interests against the Central government?s move to link all the river basins in the country. The Save Narmada Movement crusader, Smt Patkar raised the alarm against the proposed river networking terming it an effort to market and corporatise rivers in the country by the vested politicos in connivance with corporate houses.

Addressing the media here today midway her nationawide tour on bahalf of National Alliance of People?s Movement (NAPM), Smt Patkar stated that it was...

NEW DELHI, Feb 28 — Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh today repeated what Mamata Banerjee did to the North-east in her 2000 Railway Budget, unveiling a lacklustre Union Budget as far as the region is concerned. Benefits of excise duty exemptions on products manufactured by Assam’s four refineries were withdrawn with retrospective effect along with cigarettes and pan masala. Of the four refineries in NE, only the Numaligarh Refinery Ltd will get a 100 per cent Excise duty exemption while the three other refineries including BRPL, Guwahati Refinery and Digboi Refinery facing partial...

NEW DELHI, Feb 26 — Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar’s second Railway Budget held a mixed bag for the North-East. At least five new trains being proposed to be introduced besides commissioning of the Rangiya Rail Division next month. The budgetary proposals evoked mixed reactions from MPs belonging to the North-East. But they admitted in the same breath that Nitish Kumar’s Budget is at least better than Mamata Banerjee’s Budget. The new trains promised to be introduced included Tinsukia-Mariani Express, a weekly Puri-Guwahati via Asansol, Dibrugarh-Amritsar via Varanasi and Lucknow also a weekly...

NEW DELHI, Feb 25 — The seven North-eastern States which account for about seven per cent of country’s geographical area contribute accounts for 25.78 per cent of the country’s forest cover. The scenario based on the Forest Survey Report of 1999 may look good on paper but is a far cry from the target of 33 per cent set by the National Forest Policy of 1998 with a deadline of 2012.

Union Environment and Forest Minister, T R Baalu himself was rather sceptical about achieving the targets given the paucity of funds faced by his ministry, even as he pleaded with members in the Lok Sabha Monday...

GUWAHATI, Feb 22 – An amount of Rs 32 crore is due as penalty from defaulting establishments in the North-east to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) during 2002-03, while the corresponding figure for the entire country is Rs 600 crore. Revealing this, the North-east Regional PF Commissioner (FAEP) Pankaj today said the process of recovering the penalty was under way.

The EPFO in the North-east covers 3,863 establishments catering to 2,22,000 subscribers up to March 31, 2002. Of them, 646 establishments are defaulters while 2,800 have been irregular in contributing their...

ITANAGAR, Feb 20 — Arunachal Pradesh government has taken up with the Defence Ministry to strengthening road communication along McMahon line in view of the ongoing massive infrastructural development across the border in China, reports PTI. “Security of the country should be the utmost consideration,” said Takam Sanjoy, government spokesman and education minister of Arunachal Pradesh, which has about 1500 km international border with China.

Development of the state’s border area could not be ignored in view of its “strategically sensitive” nature and Arunachal Pradesh government had drawn...

NEW DELHI, Feb 20 – The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has completed the exercise of identifying weak links on the National Highways in the North-east zeroing in on 243 bridges and 355 culverts out of which 58 bridges and 98 culverts are in Assam. The Union Minister for MoRTH, Major General (Retd) B C Khanduri disclosed in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that these bridges and culverts so identified are planned to be taken up for reconstruction during the 10th Five Year Plan period subject to availability of funds. Meanwhile, the Minister of Department for Development of...

NEW DELHI, Feb 20 – At least 23 towns and cities in Assam besides other towns in the North Eastern Region (NER) are planned to be brought under the mobile telephone network (Cellular Mobile Telephone Service) from August, this was disclosed by Minister of State for Communication, Sumitra Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha today.

With this the monopoly enjoyed by the Reliance Telecom (P) Limited is also expected to end as other players including the State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Hexacom India Limited have been granted licenses to operate in the Region. While Reliance Telecom is...

Silchar, Feb. 18: The Canadian government is understood to be “eager” to sponsor Northeast-specific research on such diverse topics as information technology, biotechnology, ecology and urban development. The Canadian high commissioner to India, Peter Sutherland, told The Telegraph here yesterday that his country would be glad to help institutes of higher education or NGOs working in the northeastern states to conduct research that would ultimately benefit the people of the region.

He said funds for cultural and academic exchange between India and Canada would be disbursed through the Shastri...

GUWAHATI, Feb 18 – Being aware of the tremendous potential for development of inter-regional trade between Bangladesh and North East India, the South Asian Enterprise Development Pacility (SEDF), funded by IFC, has taken up the task to facilitate formal Indo-Bangla trade in the region in a greater scale.

To achieve the goal of formalisation of the huge volume of informal/illegal trade going on across the Indo-Bangla border in the region, the SEDF is trying to facilitate frequent meaningful interaction amongst the businessmen and industry on both side of the border. The SEDF believes...