Tea cos still funding ultras: Srivastava

GUWAHATI, March 17: The Additional Director General of Police (Operations), GM Srivastava, today lamented that though the law-and-order situation in the State has improved remarkably well during the last three years, a few tea giants with their headquarters in Kolkata and their tea gardens spread over the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border, continued paying money to insurgent outfits. Delivering a lecture on the security overview of the State at a seminar on 'Development constraints and economy of Assam' here this morning, Srivastava informed that in spite of the best efforts of the State's police department, clandestine payments to the outfits by these tea companies along with a few other business houses were made in places including Dimapur, Calcutta and even Patna. On the law-and-order front the additional DGP claimed more than 80 per cent restoration of the 'secured feeling' amongst the people than compared to the 'really bad' situation of early nineties and 1996-97. "We have managed to cut off most of the supply sources and links to the militant outfits and the major towns of the state excepting one or two districts are virtually extortion-free today", he said. Srivastava further mooted the idea of developing an Assam Industrial Security Force (AISF) provided the business and industrial houses in the State came forward to support the maintenance of the force. He also said that though only three militant outfits viz, the ULFA, NDFB and UPDS, were still active to some extent, this should not be a deterrent for investing in the state by industrialists and was optimistic that the situation would soon improve further. Industries Minister Gunin Hazarika, in his speech, called upon the people as well as the would be investors for a change of their mindset about preconceived notions of bottlenecks and security problem as hindrances to investing in the State. The seminar was organised by the NGO - Policy Alternatives for the Northeast and Conflict Elimination Awareness (PANACEA) - based in Shillong. This was one of its endeavours for promoting understanding of regional and ethnic diversity, analyse causes of dissatisfaction among people and work for sustainable development for the region. Among the prominent personalities who presented their papers at the seminar include DN Bezboroah, editor of The Sentinel, CJ Thomas, deputy director of the Shillong-based Indian Council of Social Science Research and HN Das, former chief secretary. The morning session was chaired by former chief secretary Jatin Hazarika while the afternoon session was chaired by professor R Gopalakrishnan. Noted journalist Wasbir Hussain conducted the inaugural session.