Collective Vision for NE
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: April 10 2015 -
The two-day 64th Plenary Meeting of the North Eastern Council (NEC) began in Delhi on Thursday attended by Governors, Chief Ministers of Northeastern (NE) States, senior officers from State Governments, Union Ministries and others.
During the two days, the plenary meeting will review major projects and other issues related to border trade, status on Integrated Check-Posts (ICPs), land custom stations; border haats; banks; visa facility, etc.
The Governors and NE Chief Ministers will be giving their own inputs depending on both real and perceived uniqueness of their socio-economic milieu.
The NEC as the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the region is likely to renew its vigour following the directive of the Union Government.
Here, it is worth recalling that the NEC was constituted in 1971 with the objective of “beginning of a new chapter of concerted and planned endeavour for the rapid development of the region.”
When the Northeast is considered a region by virtue of being locked in a political and economic cartography, there is a need to review and also shut paths which have been rendered ineffective in the past.
As argued elsewhere, the idea of Northeast in the colonial period has been conceptualized purely in its geo-administrative and strategic context.
However, the advent of NEC and its objectives have been different from the rationale of the colonial regime infused with paradigms which are both applicable and inapplicable.
The proponents of those treating the region as one have not been able to translate the objectives of development into a collective NE vision.
This is precisely due to the overzealous endeavours of pushing forth an oversimplified mantra based on broad developmental indicators like building infrastructure, connectivity and capital driven growth.
The imagination of setting the region on a rapid development track has often eclipsed sensitive socio-political issues which had caused untold turmoil in the Northeast.
Therefore, an impassionate review of development driven projects sponsored by the benevolent Centre in the entire region will have implications not imagined earlier.
On the part of the eight States, it has also become all the more expedient to chart out collective vision irrespective of their prized uniqueness while thwarting efforts to homogenise an area strictly based on mere geography painted umpteen times by stereotypical layers.
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