India Plans 310 Billion Rupee Spending to Build Northeast Roads
By admin • Jul 2nd, 2008 • Category: India NewsJuly 2 (Bloomberg) — India plans to invest about 310 billion rupees ($7.2 billion) by 2012 to build roads in the nation’s northeast, improving connectivity with the states bordering China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.
The government will also build airports and railway links to all state capitals of the region, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, inviting private investment in the region.
“Infrastructure deficiency remains a major concern of the government,” Singh said in New Delhi today, while releasing the Vision 2020 document for the region. “Our government has made connectivity and infrastructure the cornerstone of regional development in the northeast.”
The states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura are included in the so- called “special category of states,” as they are economically and socially underdeveloped. Insurgency and poor market access have kept away private investment from the area.
Singh called for peace and development in the region, which is home to rebel groups including the United Liberation Front of Assam and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. More than a thousand residents and militants were killed last year in the fighting, according to federal government statistics.
“For too long has violence been the dominant recurrent theme of discourse for the northeast,” Singh said. “It shall now be development.”
Source: By Bibhudatta Pradhan/Bloomberg
