Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited Northeast as many as almost 30 times in less than four years of the present Government’s term.
This was disclosed here today by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh ,while speaking at a media conclave, held on the eve of the completion of the four years of the Modi Government on 26th of this month. He said, regardless of what the political “pundits” may conclude about the factors responsible for a dramatic transformation seen in the North Eastern region as well as a meteoric upsurge of BJP as a political party, the most important underlying factor, though not much publicized, is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a new record of sorts through his personal outreach, not only by offering liberal support to the development activity in the region, but by undertaking repeated and extensive tours to each of the eight States of Northeast, thus setting a benchmark and a standard which would remain unmatched by any Prime Minister of India.
As Prime Minister in the last four years, Dr Jitendra Singh pointed out that Narendra Modi made as many as 15 official visits to Northeast and almost equal number as Party leader to hold BJP rallies and campaigns in the election-going States of Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland. This is, in itself, a record of sorts, he said and added that if we dig out the statistics of last 70 years, leave aside the Prime Minister, most of the Union Ministers also may not have undertaken such frequent tours to Northeast in the past. Another highlight of the Prime Minister’s repeated visits to Northeast has been that during most of his visits, on any single day, he was usually attending at least three official programmes, or two official programmes coupled with another one or two Party programmes, he added.
There were also several ‘firsts’ in Prime Minister Modi’s four years’ tryst with Northeast, said Dr Jitendra Singh and cited the example of Modi’s personal visit to Shillong to attend the Plenary Meeting of the North Eastern Council, which no other Prime Minister had done in the last 40 years.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, Prime Minister’s personal indulgence with Northeast also helped in activating the entire administrative structure from top to bottom. A mechanism was evolved wherein eight Union Ministers were expected to travel to Northeast in each fortnight, which means, one Union Minister in each of these eight States in fifteen days.
The developmental transformation in Northeast has to be seen to be believed, said Dr Jitendra Singh and added that there were at least two States, namely Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, which had never seen a train. But today, there is a double-gauge rail track being laid down and first ever train to Bangladesh will soon start running from Agartala.
New Airport for the first-time has come up in Sikkim and the first ever airports are being planned for capital cities like Itanagar, he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
