Giving away a golden chance
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 28, 2014 -

Taking into consideration of the need to ensure development with equity for the Northeast region, which is connected to the rest of India through a 26-km long Siliguri Corridor, also, commonly known as Chicken’s neck, Government of India set up the Department of Development of North Eastern Region in September, 2001 and later on it was upgraded to the status of a Ministry in May 2004.

So, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region or DoNER, as it is commonly known, is a unique Ministry in the Union Government as its activities are regional and it advocates the special needs of the region to the other Ministries/Departments and policy makers.

In other words, it is the facilitator between the Central Ministries/ Departments and the State Governments of the North Eastern Region for economic development, ensuring the provision of basic minimum services, creating an environment for private investment and to remove impediments to lasting peace and security in the strife-torn region, which even the neighbouring country China has described and acknowledged as the most underdeveloped region of India.

However, whether this unique Ministry has been able to achieve its objective of ensuring equal development and growth parity of the region with the rest of the country in the last 10 year of its existence is a question everyone has been asking all along.

This same question was also raised over and over again by the newly sworn-in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders during the election campaign to the recent 16th Lok Sabha elections.

Modi had even asked the people to think over what the Congress party and his predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh had done for the development of the region that had elected and send him to the Rajya Sabha for 23 years.

It’s true that successive Governments that have come to power at the Centre have never given any serious attention as well as intention for the development of the region.

In addition to this, there are also various factors responsible for the underdevelopment of the region including its topography, cultural diversity, ethnicity and conflict on one hand and absence of effective policies that could mitigate constraints towards economic development and most importantly, lack of proper understanding of the issues afflicting the State on the part of the Minister concerned holding the charge of DoNER.

In such a situation, questions that have been raised from several quarters as to why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has entrusted the ‘controversial’ former Chief of Indian Army General VK Singh, with the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER) without consideration of the two Ministers, namely Sarbananda Sonowal and Kiren Rijiju, who are born and bred in the region, are nothing but natural.

People of the region may be thankful about that fact that Atal Bihari Vajpayee, another NDA Prime Minister had taken the initiative of creating a separate Ministry for the Northeast, but surely not for the choice of the current Minister in-charge of the Ministry, which is akin to giving away yet another golden chance for developing a neglected region at par with the rest of the country by the newly installed NDA Government.