The Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER) is organising “Rising Northeast: The Investor Summit” this weekend in Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, DoNER Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, and the chief ministers of all eight states of the region will be participating in the event, which will showcase the investment potential and developmental activity across the region.
For decades after Independence, the region was mired in insurgency-related challenges. Several insurgent groups, like the Naga and Mizo separatists, had a field day until the 1980s. When the Centre resolved those challenges through negotiations, violent movements in Assam (for example, ULFA and NDFB) emerged with demands ranging from regional autonomy to a separate sovereign entity. Infiltration from Bangladesh remained a serious security challenge, leading to movements against it by organisations like the AASU and AAGSP, which culminated in the Assam Accord in 1985. These developments led to the Union government looking at the region primarily as a security concern. As far as development was concerned, people in the region saw Delhi as being too far.
The Narasimha Rao government put forward the Look East policy as part of its endeavour to enhance relations with South and Southeast Asia. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government saw in it an opportunity to turn the Northeast into a gateway for relations with the countries in the east. It established the DoNER ministry in 2001. Although some movement did take place, the region continued to remain largely unattended. A comment by then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a speech in Chennai in July 2011 — “We encourage India not just to look East, but to engage East and act East” — jolted the Indian policy establishment into action. The Narendra Modi government formally upgraded the policy to Act East in 2014.
The Modi government saw the Northeast not just as a gateway but as a pivot. Underscoring the importance of the region in its initiatives to connect with ASEAN and East Asia, the Modi government pressed the development accelerator in the region. Starting with Assam in 2015, state after state in the region fell into the BJP’s kitty in the next three years, making it easier for the central government to take its developmental push forward. A region that used to feel not only physical but emotional distance from Delhi felt that gap close. Not a single month passed without a Union minister visiting the region. In the first 10 years of the Modi government, infrastructure got a major push. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways allocated 10 per cent of its budget to the region, constructing 4,950 km of National Highways, investing over $5 billion. The North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) was launched in 2018. It has a billion-dollar budget for roads, water supply and power infrastructure.
“Rising Northeast” also bears testimony to the government’s commitment to regional development. The Northeast is a region with unique potential. It is the only region in the country to have 5,484 km of international borders with five neighbours — Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet (China). Proposed projects like the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, and the revival of the Stilwell Road will enhance the opportunities for land-based trade between India and Southeast Asia. The upcoming Sittwe Port in Myanmar’s Rakhine Province and the existing Chittagong Port in Bangladesh, despite the current political turmoil there, can act as potential openings to the world’s busiest sea routes in the Indian Ocean.
As the region gets another major push for development, the states must get their priorities right. These days, there is a tendency to look at investments in high-tech areas like defence, IT and semiconductors as the only means of development. There is no doubt that such investments have enormous potential. However, each region has to assess its strengths carefully before yearning for investments. The strength of the Northeast region lies in renewable energy, tourism and human resources. The Northeast accounts for over 40 per cent — estimated at 62,000 MW — of India’s hydropower potential, of which only 6.9 per cent is currently being harnessed. Similarly, the region has an estimated solar power potential of 57,360 MW, though only 17 per cent of the capacity is installed. Investments in solar, wind, and small-scale hydro projects offer a huge opportunity.
Tourism, especially eco-tourism, has boundless potential. With religious and ethnic diversity, and diverse and colourful festivals and fairs, the region could have been a centre for tourism. One-horned rhinos in Kaziranga National Park, golf courses amid tea gardens in Tezpur, the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, root bridges in Meghalaya, glaciers in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, the Gomti river, meandering through the Chobimura Hills of Tripura, and the country’s second-largest freshwater lake (Loktak Lake) in Manipur — these should have been developed into major international tourist destinations. Sadly, while neighbouring Thailand gets 35 million foreign tourists annually, and the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia gets over 2 million foreigners every year, the Northeast has less than 2 lakh foreign visitors.
The Northeast has another major advantage — a large number of young people with an almost 80 per cent literacy rate. A good number of them can speak English fluently. Yet, a massive skilling gap exists, necessitating greater focus on human resource development. Natural resources, including forest wealth, also have untapped potential.
What the Northeast needs is a new vision based on its inherent potential for development. That is what the investor summit intends to offer.
The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP
