From Earth, Water to Air: PM Modi delivered North East back to India and Opposition is afraid of it

Manipur violence is a national tragedy, but the Opposition glee was difficult to hide, if at all there was any attempt at it. When the barbaric video of women raped and paraded naked went viral, this turned into an open revelry. Finally, the most rotten of Indian politics have got, what they think, a beating stick they can use against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular, BJP in general.

The video broke into full public view just as this elite-centric, dynastic, caste- and region-based formations, powered by arm-chair left-liberal intellectuals sitting in Delhi and Chicago, were trying to cobble up a semblance of political unity to hide their incompetence and crimes—political and financial—and avoid jail.

What better timing to save their skins and sagging or lost political relevance?

They forget that while the Congress and its left stooges to whom Indira Gandhi farmed out Congress’ own intellectual and political thinking had relinquished the North East India to be gobbled up by a hawkish China, it was PM Modi, who delivered the region back to India, nay, made it India, again.

Let’s have a look at the achievements of the Modi government in reclaiming India’s eight sisters.

Budget Doubled in 9 Years

The Union budget for the Northeast region has nearly doubled in the last nine years since the NDA government came to power. Union Budget, 2023-24, increased the budget of the ministry of DoNER from Rs 2,332.78 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 5,892 crore. A provision of Rs 2,491 crore in Budget, 2023-24, has been made entirely for the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS).

The new scheme of Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) Scheme was announced as a Central Sector Scheme in the Union Budget of 2022-23.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has spent over Rs 3.84 lakh crore for the development of infrastructure in the North Eastern (NE) states—– road connectivity, air connectivity, railways network, waterways, telecom, and power— since 2014-15. Central Ministries and departments, unless otherwise specifically exempted, set apart 10 per cent of their Plan Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for the Northeast.

There is an increase of around 186 per cent in total actual expenditure in NER, from Rs 24,819 crore in 2014-15 to Rs70,874 crore in 2021-22 under 10 per cent GBS. The BE allocation for the year 2022-23 for NER under 10 per cent GBS is Rs 76,040 crore.

Figure this: Rs 363.14 crore was allocated to Manipur for projects under MDoNER. An amount of Rs 363.14 crore has been released by the Centre to Manipur since 2020 for the implementation of projects under various schemes of the MDoNER and the NEC.

Of the total amount, Rs 114.99 crore was released in 2020-21; Rs 145.24 crore in 2021-22; Rs 65.18 crore in 2022-23; and Rs 37.73 crore during 2023-24 (until June 2023).

With better infrastructure has come better and beefed-up security situation in the NER. The overall security situation in the North Eastern States has improved substantially since 2014-2022 as compared to the period between 2005 and 2013. A direct evidence of this is the reduction in insurgency. There has been 68 per cent reduction in insurgency incidents: between 2005 and 2013 there were 10,204 incidents as opposed to 3238 in the period spanning 2014 and 2022.

Safe, Secure North East

Correspondingly, security forces casualties have come down by 68 per cent: between 2005 and 2013 some 397 personnel lost their lives fighting insurgency in NER, but this number came down to 128 between 2014 and 2022.

While the Opposition will not mention this, civilian deaths have come by 82 per cent from the period between 2005 and 2013. In this period, 2,298 people lost their lives to violence, while between 2014 and 2022 this figure stood at 420.

Success Story

A look at the success of Central schemes must, but will not, put the Opposition to shame. 145 projects, worth Rs 3,392.99 crore, have been sanctioned in North Eastern States under North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS). These include 51 roads and bridges, 6 power projects, 23 water supply projects, 36 health projects, 29 education projects.

Under the Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources Scheme-State (NLCPR-State), 1,635 projects have been sanctioned, of which 1,301 have been completed and 334 projects are ongoing.

Under the Social and Infrastructure Development Fund (SIDF), 37 projects were sanctioned, of which 27 have been completed and 10 are ongoing.

A new Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) was signed by Government of India, Government of Assam and Bodo Groups (ABSU and NDFB factions) on January 1, 2020.

From financial year 2014-15 to 2022-23, some 852 projects amounting to Rs5,580.15 crore were sanctioned. From financial year 2014-15 to 2022-23, 655 projects amounting to Rs 6,450.07 crore were completed.

Close to 594 projects, amounting to Rs4,634.57 crore were ongoing as on February this year.

Road to Development

Over 4,000-km of roads have been laid by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways in NER between 2014 and 2022. Another 7,545-km of roads are under construction with the outlay of Rs 1,05,518 crore.

To date, new rail projects for 864.7 km, amounting to Rs 19,855 crore have been sanctioned in NER since 2014-15. Currently, 20 projects for new lines as well as doubling, at a cost of Rs 74,485 crore for the length of 2,011 km, falling fully or partly in North Eastern Region, are at different stages of planning, approval and execution. Out of these 321-km long lines have been commissioned at the expenditure of Rs 26,874 crore.

Winds of Change

In the NER, 17 airports have been made operational so far. Recently, Donyi Polo Airport (erstwhile Holongi Airport) has been inaugurated in Arunachal Pradesh. The development of new Greenfield Airports at Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh; Dibrugarh, Guwahati and Silchar Airports in Assam; Imphal Airport in Manipur; Barapani Airport in Meghalaya and Agartala Airport in Tripura are underway.

Rivers of Prosperity

NER’s waterways are being developed with fairway of required depth and width, day and night navigation aids and terminals. The facilities created and planned would cost Rs461 crore across 2020 and 2025. River Barak was declared as National Waterway-16 (NW -16) in 2016. It connects Silchar, Karimganj and Badarpur in Cachar valley of Assam with Haldia and Kolkata ports through Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) Route.

Let There Be Light

Ministry of Power has also undertaken power generation (hydro/thermal) projects since 2014 in the North Eastern States. Further, the transmission and distribution network has also been strengthened. Three Hydro Electric Projects (above 25 MW) have been undertaken in the North Eastern States.

Department of Telecommunications has also undertaken several projects in the North Eastern Region for strengthening telecom connectivity to provide mobile services in uncovered villages in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh for seamless coverage along National Highway; in Meghalaya; and along National Highways on 4G Technology.

Mobile connectivity in Arunachal Pradesh has been boosted.

The author is News Editor, Firstpost. He tweets from @SiddharthaRai2. Views expressed are personal.