From Our Correspondent
AGARTALA: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sakar has urged the Planning Commission to constitute a panel to look into some vital developmental projects including ongoing Broad Gauge (BG) conversion work from Lumding to Agartala.
Talking to reporters here on Saturday, the Chief Minister said several development related issues came up for discussion in the meeting with Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr Montek Singh Alhuwalia in Delhi on March 29.
Giving details of the meeting, Sarkar said he had pleaded Alhuwalia to speed up the much-delayed BG conversion of rail track from Lumding to Agartala. “If the situation needs, the Centre could withdraw one battalion of Assam Rifles from the state and deploy in the insurgency prone NC Hills area”, he told Dr Alhuwalia.
Besides, improvement of Assam-Agartala National Highway (NH-44), expansion of Agartala Airport, improvement of telecommunication facilities, strengthening of North East Council (NEC) and operationalization of Kamalpur Airport were also discussed in the meeting.
“We also demanded to open inland water ways between Tripura and Bangladesh”, Sarkar said.
Alhuwalia told the Chief Minister that Tripura would be power surplus state in the days to come and make it useful. In this context, Sarkar said that the state would receive 196MW power from the 726 MW Palatana power project and the state would be able to sell around 100 MW power. The matter is under the Centre’s consideration when the Chief Minister said that power starved Bangladesh wants to buy power from the Rs. 3500 crore Palatana power project.
Alhuwalia emphasized on skill development of human resources by way of taking more initiatives.
In reply, the Chief Minister said as of now Tripura has eight ITIs and four more will come up while three Poly Technique Institutes. The government wants to have an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) but MHRD guideline comes on the way, he told Alhuwalia.
“The Planning Commission’s Dy Chairperson was requested to form a body to monitor some vital development projects in the Northeast region”, he added. Sarkar’s proposal was highly appreciated by the Dy Chairperson and other members of the Planning Commission.
Indo-Bangla declaration: Sarkar is keen that the Government of India takes a more proactive role in implementing the joint declaration signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in January 2010.
“During my discussion with Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission I have stressed on India taking a more proactive role in implementing the joint declaration signed by India and Bangladesh,” Sarkar said.
He said, Tripura was largely connected through waterways with Bangladesh before partition of the country.