Aiming to make the Northeast gateway to Southeast Asia: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that the government has initiated major infrastructure projects in the seven Northeast states, including investing ₹40,000 crore to improve the roads and highways, with the aim to make the region a gateway to Southeast Asia.
However, he lamented that “only Gangtok (in the Northeast) had found a place in the first 50 clean cities”, out of the 12 cities from the region surveyed as part of the recent nationwide cleanliness survey.
While four Northeastern cities found a place between 100 and 200 clean cities, seven were positioned between 200 and 300, with Shillong being the 276th, he said while stressing that ‘Swachhata’ or cleanliness was a major challenge for everyone in the region.
The PM was addressing the centenary celebrations of voluntary organisation, Bharat Sevashram Sangha, in Shillong through video conferencing.
“We have to make the Northeast a gateway for Southeast Asia,” Modi said, adding if this gateway is dirty, then the dream would not be fulfilled and asked the people and organisations like the Sangha to join hands in the cleanliness campaign.
Observing that there has been no balanced development in the entire Northeastern region even so many years after Independence, Modi said his government “with all its resources” had planned to bring about overall and balanced development of the states here. The Prime Minister said the major thrust would be to improve connectivity and develop the entire region for tourism purposes.
“All these initiatives will help to make the Northeast the gateway of Southeast Asia,” he said.
While an investment of ₹40,000 crore is being made to improve the road infrastructure in the Northeast, 19 big railway projects have also been started in the region, he said.
“We are also improving the electricity situation in the Northeast and trying to bring even more tourists to the region,” Modi said.
Announcing that the Northeast would soon be connected with UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik) scheme, he said small airports were also being developed in the region, while the extension of the runway at Shillong airport has been approved.
Bharat Sevashram Sangha is a network of volunteers across the globe engaged in helping people in distress. The Sangha’s social welfare activities include disaster relief, spreading education, providing healthcare facilities, vocational training and upliftment of the tribals.
Lauding the role of the Sangha, the PM said a myth was created that spirituality and service cannot go together.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has said it couldn’t divulge information on who had sought permission to use Narendra Modi’s pictures in advertisements, saying that such an exercise needed a “thorough search”.
In reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by a PTI correspondent, it said the exercise would also “disproportionately” divert its resources because the information was not available in a “consolidated” form.
“Collection of information, if any, will require the undertaking of a thorough search of every receipt or communication kept in all the files related to the matter,” the PMO said. Such an extensive exercise, it said, would “disproportionately divert the resources of this office from the normal discharge of its functions and attract the provision of Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, 2005”.
The PMO was asked to give details of permissions sought by companies, trusts and individuals for using the PM’s photographs with copies of communications accepting or denying such requests. In response to another query, the PMO said it had no record of permission sought by Reliance Jio and Paytm for the use of Modi’s pictures in advertisements. “The information sought does not form part of the records held by this office,” it said. In September last year, Reliance Jio had in full-page newspaper advertisements dedicated the Reliance Jio 4G service to the Modi government’s flagship Digital India project. PTI