N-E industry policy on Cabinet agenda

While the North-eastern Industrial policy had originally been introduced in 1997 to ensure the neglected region’s inclusion in India’s economic activity and growth, the policy had largely failed to attract investments into the region as the Centre later extended these sops to the hilly states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh as well.

Since the two North Indian states are closer to the mainstream of economic activity in the country, investors have flocked there while the North-East, with its connectivity and infrastructure problems, lost out. Even among the North eastern states, most of the investments under the North-East Industrial Policy have gone into the more developed state of Assam.

The Centre has been holding discussions with the industry ministers of the seven states for some time now in order to make the new industrial policy more effective in attracting investments.

The states have been demanding that they be granted Special Economic Zone status, failing which investors may prefer going to the two Northern states with the same tax sops as the North-East or simply set up an SEZ in states with better infrastructure.