Economy / Northeast

GUWAHATI, July 23: Despite perennial insurgency, the Northeast Frontier Railway (NF Rly) has earned Rs 684.04 crore during 1999-2000. Out of Rs 684.04 crore, the Frontier has generated Rs 432.27 crore and Rs 184.99 crore from goods and passengers respectively. According to official statistics, earnings of the previous year (1998/99) stood at Rs 592.27 crore as against the financial target of Rs 544.05 crore. Sources said that due to suspension of night-running trains in the wake of spurt in activities of the insurgent groups particularly in Lower Assam, the overall earnings had gone down to...

IMPHAL, July 21: A high-powered Central team today expressed concern over the smuggling of foreign goods through this border town in Chandel district bordering Myanmar, official sources said. The seven-member 'task force on boundary management' led by former Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole also inspected border gates with Myanmar before holding a meeting with senior district and security officials. The team arrived in Imphal yesterday to assess the situation in the border areas of the state. Sources said Godbole wondered how the foreign goods were smuggled into the Indian side in spite of...

GUWAHATI, August 31: In a significant move, four countries - India, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh - have decided to boost the border trade and to improve the old existing roads linking the four countries. The decision was taken at an international conference on 'Regional economic cooperation and development involving India, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh' held at Kunming, China recently. The representatives of the four countries suggested setting up of trade points at Zemithang, Gelling and Kibithoo in the Northeast to facilitate trade with Myanmar and China. The three-day conference also laid...

NEW DELHI, August 28: Alarmed by the mad rush of cigarette companies to get bases in the Northeast to avail of the 100 per cent excise waiver, a powerful lobby of cigarette manufacturers has started pressuring the Union government to withdraw the excise concessions to avoid a cut-throat competition among the manufacturers. Even as the move to force the Union government to abandon the excise duty concession scheme gathers momentum, another tobacco giant has joined the race to set up plants in the Northeast by submitting a proposal worth Rs 525 crore. The Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) has sought...

DIBRUGARH, August 27: A part of the ancient Silk Route, the Stilwell Road, may be opened for civilians by 2005. That is the time when most trade of the globe would be opened up and liberalised, and the beneficiaries of the Stilwell Road are keen to have the roadblocks removed and pave the way for prosperity to unfurl in a hitherto landlocked hinterland. The four Governments in Beijing, New Delhi, Dhaka and Yangon appear enthusiastic from the outcome of an unofficial international conference that took place during the middle of this month at Kunming, the capital city of the south Chinese...

NEW DELHI, August 19: The wind of investments blowing all over the country may have finally touched the Northeast following the exemption of central excise duty in the region. Two cigarette giants have submitted four proposals envisaging investments worth of over Rs 400 crore, of which Rs 313 crore are proposed to be invested in Assam. Just when the gloomy investments scenario in the Northeast was about to look up, the Centre's move to exempt excise duties in the region has been challenged, with the Tobacco Institute of India, an apex body of all tobacco manufacturers, questioning the...

AGARTALA, August 7: The Centre has earmarked Rs 200 crore to augment sub-transmission and the distribution network in the seven Northeast states. The North Eastern Regional Electricity Board (NEREB chairman and Tripura power minister Badal Chowdhury and other state power ministers today said they would jointly take up outstanding issues of power sector of the region with the Union power minister in November. The region's resources were yet to be properly utilised, though the region could generate 60,000 MW hydel power and meet with the northeastern, eastern and central India's power...

AGARTALA, August 7-The seven Northeast states have jointly urged the underground militant outfits of the region not to hinder developmental works. A resolution to this effect was passed at the 46th meeting of the North Eastern Regional Electricity Board (NEREB) here yesterday. Power ministers from Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and deputy chief minister of Mizoram, also holding the power portfolio, attended the meeting. The NEREB chairman and Tripura power minister Badal Chowdhury told newsmen here today that all the seven power ministers expressed concern over...

GUWAHATI, August 4: The Federation of Industries and Commerce of North Eastern Region (FINER) has hailed the Bangladesh government's decision to allow transhipment of Indian goods through its territory. FINER president SK Jain said the Indian business community had been demanding the facility for long. Bangladesh's grant of transhipment facilities to India is a major step towards creating a regime of free movement of goods within South Asia - one of the prerequisites for the South Asia Free Trade Agreement, proposed by India under the aegis of the South Asian Association for Regional...

DHAKA, Aug 1 - Bangladesh will ask New Delhi to provide facility for transit of its goods through India to Nepal and Bhutan in lieu of the transhipment of Indian goods through its territory and seek duty-free access for 25 export products to Indian market, its commerce minister Tofail Ahmed said here today. Ahmed said Dhaka will seek duty-free access for the export products on a non-reciprocal basis when modalities for transhipment of Indian goods are discussed at the next meeting of the joint committee of experts. Ahmed said during his meeting with Indian commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde...