NE States and the most competitive tag
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: October 14 2015 -
The recent news report which states that Meghalaya with a double digit compound average annual growth of 10.8 per cent and 27,300 crore rupees worth Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), has emerged as one of the most competitive states in the country among the Northeastern states.
The most competitive tag or award has been given based on a study conducted by Harvard Professor Michael Porter’s Institute of Competitiveness in collaboration with the one Indian based business newspaper.
The institute also known as Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC) is based at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.
The study has looked into Meghalaya’s rich forest resources covering about 3108 sq. km.
It said that the State has potential and scope for hydro-electricity and also good education system.
The same compares States with similar per capita Gross Domestic Product to assess their competitiveness. It looks at factors like availability of land, labour and capital, the role played by the governments in facilitating businesses.
The study stresses that the 29 Indian states, with their varied demography, sizes, natural resources and income levels cannot be compared without accounting for such differences.
To this effect, the states are categorized under various categories starting from factor-driven economies, said reports.
While the one celebrates the good tidings, Meghalaya can still boast about few more aspects perhaps the study did not consider, especially the potentials of the rich natural resources including coal and uranium.
While information on uranium reserves in general and Meghalaya in particular is not easily available from Government agencies, it is said that the state’s reserve is categorised as a “strategic mineral”.
Unofficial reports estimate the reserves in the State to range between 9 000 t and 14 000 t ranking third among all other uranium-rich states after Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh.
The ores are spread over a mountainous terrain in deposits varying from eight to 47 meters from the surface in and around Domiasiat in Meghalaya.
It must also be recalled that Australia has expressed keen interest to invest in Meghalaya for uranium mining operations and share the technologies for safe mining despite the fact that uranium mining in Meghalaya had run into rough weathers as many civil society organisations had opposed the Government of India’s move to extract more uranium from the state.
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