Sushma calls meeting of all north-east CMS
NEWDELHI: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has convened a meeting of chief ministers of seven north-eastern states on May 4 to discuss India’s Act East policy and New Delhi’s relationship with countries in South East Asia, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
After hosting 10 Asean (Association of South East Asian Countries) leaders in Delhi in January, the government is looking at stepping up ties with countries in the region that could bring economic benefit to the north-eastern states and fulfil the country’s strategic objectives. The chief ministers will also be briefed about the country’s ties with the grouping of Bay of Bengal (BIMSETC) nations. The meeting is aimed at updating some of the CMS who have been elected recently, a government official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly said that the north-east is at the heart of the government’s Act East policy, a rechristening of the Look East policy launched by the PV Narasimha Rao government in the early 1990s.
“We created the Act East Policy and the north-east is at the heart of it. The Act East Policy requires increased people-to-people contact, trade ties, and other relations with countries to India’s east, particularly Asean members,” Modi had said in Guwahati in February.
The north-eastern states recognise that the policy could help them economically. “Many of the initiatives under the Act East policy, such as the Kaladan multimode transport project (connecting north-east to Myanmar) and India-myanmar-thailand trilateral highway, can immensely benefit the north-east”, said Rajat Kumar Sethi, adviser to Manipur chief minister Nongthombam Biren Singh. States in the region could benefit from the Act East policy through more trade, investment, and infrastructure development, added Prem D Rai, a Lok Sabha MP from the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF).
Though India-asean trade is around $70 billion, just 1% of it passes through the north-east. “That can be changed. Thailand is a 10-hour drive from Manipur, and if we improve infrastructure the state can benefit immensely from the trade with Asean,” Rai added.