Making stop-gap arrangements year after year to cope with annual floods during the monsoon season is unsustainable and the eight states of the North East should instead work together to get on top of the problem, Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said today.
Scindia said this after chairing a review meeting at the North Eastern Council (NEC) secretariat here.
The Union minister said that the DoNER Ministry will continue to work together with Meghalaya not only on particular projects that are important for the state but also that take in the wider interests, strengths and weaknesses of the other North East states, the nation and neighbouring countries.
“Therefore, we are looking at international trade and international connectivity,” Scindia told reporters after chairing the review meeting.
He held the meeting with officials from the ministry, the NEC and the state government to discuss the progress of various projects and initiatives in the region.
He also said that there is a tremendous amount on the ministry’s plate in terms of building blocks that they need to strategise on.
Scindia also said that due to the frequent floods in the region and damage to road infrastructure, he believes that stop-gap arrangements are not a solution but that there should be permanent ones. The answer to this, he added, lies with each individual state and the role of DoNER is that of facilitator.
“But I think we should look at the revival of infrastructure after the damage is done by floods where the ministry would like to come forward and help but we should look at how we tackle this situation going forward,” Scindia said, adding that all eight states of the region should sit together and come up with a unified solution to ameliorate the problem of floods in the years to come.
The minister also said that there were discussions today on the areas of core competence and comparative advantage of Meghalaya and admitted that he was pleasantly surprised at the state government’s plans for the New Shillong Township.
He said that during the meeting, various inputs were given on how to look at building the new modern city with the traditional strengths and in addition to that looking at areas of core competency like tourism, agriculture and Information Technology and how to build that going forward.
Scindia also said that the ministry will not look only at utilisation or completion certificates for projects but will also make sure all the states do social audits for hospitals, schools.
“Hospitals should have doctors and nurses. Schools must have teachers because that is the real soul. Therefore, there should be a social audit on how many patients have been treated, how many students have been taught in a school. That is very monumentally important in our path of progress,” he said.
