Depressingly familiar

January 23: Most of what was said and done during the Prime Minister's trip to the Northeast is depressingly familiar. As usual, there wer...

January 23: Most of what was said and done during the Prime Minister8217;s trip to the Northeast is depressingly familiar. As usual, there were requests from chief ministers for more funds to combat insurgency and complaints about the lack of funding for infrastructure projects.

Assam8217;s chief minister, Praful Kumar Mahanta, for example, asked for debt relief and fresh financial assistance of Rs 1000 crore. To judge by what Mahanta said, fighting insurgency in Assam requires a bottomless pit of money. Atal Behari Vajpayee on his part brought up the obligatory theme of covert Pakistani aid to insurgents in the region.

The gameplan, he said, is to destabilise India. If there was a positive note in the conference it came in a proposal made by the chief minister of Tripura, Manik Sarkar. He advocated border trade between Tripura and Bangladesh and urged the Centre to talk to Dacca about opening Chittagong Port for Tripura. This makes sense and is exactly what SAARC prescribes. At present goods to and from Calcuttahave to travel 1600 km to get to Tripura. If Chittagong port is used the distance would be cut to 350 km.

At the end of two days of brainstorming with regional governors and chief ministers came a financial package from the Centre which was different from previous ones only in the sense that it was larger and more ambitious. If there is a new element it is that computers are now going to be sent to the rescue of the Northeast.

Every package for the region has concentrated on building roads and power stations and on improving health and education facilities. In principle, the approach is sound. There is good reason to believe that improvements in living conditions and job opportunities will reduce the attractions of militancy for the region8217;s youth. But will the Vajpayee government be any better at carrying out its good intentions than, say, the Gowda government? Delivery mechanisms at regional level are poor. Corruption is rampant.

Political instability makes good governance impossible. Regionalgovernments have not proved skillful at building local institutions.

The Centre itself has not been good at implementing its part of the Northeast plans. At last week8217;s conference chief ministers pointed out that earlier development recommendations by expert committees were still gathering dust in New Delhi. Unless the Centre devotes more time and energy to the Northeast, the roads and power stations in the new package will not see the light of day. The standard solution of setting up a Northeast cell in the prime minister8217;s office is not the answer.

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The kind of institutional arrangement required is one involving coordinated planning and implementation; the Centre and regional governments must work closely together. Meanwhile, on the security front, the Centre needs to take serious note of what the GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, has said about the nexus between local politicians and militants.

The army8217;s efforts to establish a unified command should not be hampered nor should militants who have beenarrested be released at the whims and fancies of politicians. The enemy within is often more dangerous than the enemy without.