Sikkim Safest place for investment in the entire country- Aiyar



Kolkata 10 Jan 2009

Former DoNER minister Mani Shankar Aiyar at the North East Business Summit in Calcutta on Saturday and Union minister B.K. Handique at another session of the meet. Pictures by Kishor Roy Chowdhury
Calcutta, Jan. 9: Former DoNER minister Mani Shankar Aiyar today blamed the private sector’s lack of “long-term vision” and “genuine patriotism” for the tardy infrastructure growth in the Northeast.

Speaking at the fifth North East Business Summit here this morning, the former minister pulled up entrepreneurs for resorting to “easy options” in the developed zones of the country rather than investing in the Northeast.

“It establishes my conviction that in this country, the private sector is more inefficient than the public sector, making me an unredeemed socialist,” said Aiyar on the sidelines of the summit.

Asked whether insurgency has deterred companies from investing in the region, Aiyar said barring Manipur and parts of Assam and Nagaland, the rest of the Northeast has been peaceful. He named Sikkim and Mizoram as the two “safest” states in the entire country.

Regarding attacks on mega projects, including the East-West corridor, Aiyar said he had been demanding a dedicated set of security personnel for a particular project.

“India cannot achieve double digit growth unless the Northeast is pulled up by the boot straps to match the national growth rate,” he said.

To ensure that kind of growth and proper implementation of Vision 20/20, Aiyar proposed that civil society and the business sector should monitor the implementation of projects.

He said the Indian Chamber of Commerce could form a group of intellectuals drawn from all the northeastern states to assess the growth impartially.

A month before the North Eastern Council meets for its biennial conclave, the intellectuals’ forum would prepare a project report on behalf of civil society containing a genuine assessment of progress made over a certain period of time. The North Eastern Hill University (Nehu) could also pitch in with economists and intellectuals to monitor the growth.

Aiyar stressed on the “major historical breakthrough” that would alter the political profile and the economic prospects of the Northeast — Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India on January 12.

The Northeast, he said, was the second most prosperous zone in British India, only to be robbed of its prospects by the Bangladesh war.

It was time, Aiyar said, that the human roadblocks set in the path of healthy trade ties between the two countries be removed. Confident that Hasina’s visit would improve trade connectivity, Aiyar said the two neighbouring countries had missed out on an era of economic development in the past 40 years.

Union minister B.K. Handique concentrated on mining prospects in the Northeast in another session of the business meet at the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce.

source: Soma Banerjee