ITANAGAR, May 26: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju today enlisted the work done by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre during its one-year rule, ranging from efforts to bring back the economy on track to initiatives for the poor.
“The NDA Government was working to bring back the degrading economy to the track and root out corruption,” he said, while addressing party workers at the one-year celebration of the NDA government here today.
While lauding the people of the state for providing him the opportunity to serve them, he said that his priority was not only to bring development in the land-locked state but also to initiate measures to preserve its identity.
“The lost glory of this sensitive border state needs to be revived and my priority is on development and creating a unique identity of the state in mainland India,” he said.
Stating that after being inducted as the union minister, he tried to convince several ministries and as a result, developmental packages have been provided to the state as well as to the entire North East region.
“Implementation of central schemes will not be successful if the state government is not serious and committed,” he said.
On security of NE people in various parts of the country, he claimed that he had implemented the Bezbarooah Committee report and accordingly opened helplines in all metros besides constituting groups comprising students from the region to help students in distress.
“Steps have been taken to incorporate chapters of north east in the syllabus of school textbooks across the country. Recommendation has been made to CBSE and UGC to work in this direction and the process has already started,” he said.
“The Union cabinet recently approved creation of two new battalion of NDRF in addition to the existing 10 in the country. The two battalions comprising 1,200 personnel each, will have their headquarters in Arunachal Pradesh and Varanasi respectively,” Rijiju said.
The Union Minister said he had asked Chief Minister Nabam Tuki to provide land for establishment of the battalion to help the disaster-prone state.
To recruit youths from north east in central forces, the home ministry had already relaxed certain criteria including height and chest of the candidates, he said.
“My ministry also proposed to recruit ten males and females each from every NE state except Assam annually in Delhi Police as a long-term policy.
“In case of Assam, the number of male and female candidates will be 20 each,” he said adding, a frontier headquarter of SSB had been approved at Tezpur in Assam while, the IGP (CISF) had already been shifted to Guwahati from Kolkata to look after the NE states.
“In order to woo foreign tourists to Arunachal, the Home Ministry has relaxed Protected Area Permit (PAP) norms in some selected tourist circuits in the state and tourists can visit any time with permission from the local authorities,” he said adding, 37 extra border out posts (BOPs) have been sanctioned for the state.
Referring to various infrastructure projects sanctioned by the Centre for Arunachal during one year, Rijiju said that Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had recently laid the foundation of road projects worth Rs 6,000 crore in the state, besides giving approval for the industrial corridor road from Bhairab kund in Tawang to Ruksin in East Siang district.
“The union RD ministry has already relaxed the population criteria for Arunachal for implementation of the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) scheme, while an amount of Rs 3,000 crore has been allocated to the state under telecommunication sector,” he said.
Rijiju said an amount of Rs 5,000 crore for Arunachal and Sikkim has been sanctioned for power transmission projects above 132 KV and survey for the project has already began.
In order to tap the sporting talents of the region, the Centre has already proposed to establish the North East Sports University at Imphal in Manipur, he said.
Moreover, to hone the talents of Arunachal Pradesh, the National Film and Television Institute had been approved for the state, works for which have already started.
“I want my people not to be dependent on others and accordingly opportunities have been provided,” he added. (PTI)
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