Business Standard
July 11, 2014
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju recently visited Arunachal Pradesh to review the border area development programme and take stock of the security situation.
On his maiden visit to Arunachal Pradesh after being appointed as the Union Minister, Rijiju held meetings with Chief Minister Nabam Tuki and other top officials and security personnel.
The Chief Minister presented a memorandum highlighting some new proposals for integrated development of border areas.
Several important issues including infrastructure development along the border, progress of existing government schemes, functioning of security forces and maintenance of peace in the state were discussed at the meeting.
” I have taken a detailed presentation from all these important forces including presentation made by state government on police modernization. It’s a whole picture of the security situation of Arunachal Pradesh and disaster management. The state government presented details about the activities of the Border area development programme that is funded by our ministry,” said Rijiju .
Arunachal Pradesh shares a total of 1,126 km of its international border with China and holds a strategic significance for the country.
The government has plans to give fillip to development projects along the border and strengthen the police and paramilitary forces in the state.
” I have made certain changes in the approach. If we link up all the development schemes from the strategic point of view then there will be better flow of fund, better guidelines attributed to the schemes. There will be better speed of execution of the works. So we must have a holistic approach to develop the whole of Arunachal Pradesh which is in border as well as in strategic state,” he added.
Rijiju revealed that the Centre is working to bring various underground outfits to negotiation table.
“Talks are going on. In some places the Memorandum of Surrender is ready and has to be signed. In some areas we need to get more people on board. Various talks are at various stages. I am reviewing whole of this thing. Because we have not really declared our policies on the talks with militants, I cannot comment anything now. But what I said is we are ready to talk with all these groups and many of them have already come to Delhi,” he said.
The minister is likely to visit Nagaland this month and other northeastern states in the coming months to take stock of development and security in the region.
