Grateful to PM Modi for recognising the North East as gateway to Asia: Nagaland CM

Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang on Thursday expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for recognising the North Eastern states as the 'gateway to South East Asia'.

Zeliang was in the national capital to discuss projects being undertaken in that part of the country with Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Development of North Eastern Region Dr Jitendra Singh.

"I have come to apprise some of the important projects to be taken up in Nagaland under the Ministry of the Development of North Eastern Region, and I am very grateful to Dr Jitendra Singh. He has come up with a new perception and with it so that people will come to know what the North East region is," Zeliang told ANI.

"In the past, people hardly knew where the North Eastern region was, but now they are going to the states to know the ground reality. We are also grateful to Prime Minister Modi for recognising the North East, which is the gateway to South East Asia," he added.

Meanwhile, Dr Jitendra Singh announced that a 'camp secretariat' is to be set up in each North East state by rotation, with the aim of addressing the problems faced by each individual state.

"Zeliang has been with us since yesterday and as a part of the Ministry of the Development of North Eastern Region, we started a process of having at least eight Union Ministers every fortnight in the North East, which means that one minister will visit each of the states every two weeks," Singh said.

"In addition, we have initiated an innovative concept that could be described as a 'camp secretariat' in each of the eight states by rotation every month. We started this in January with Manipur. We are also making an earnest effort to address the peculiar specific problems from each region from the eight states: the problem of connectivity, growth and so on," he added.

The minister further announced that a North East festival will soon be held in New Delhi to showcase the region to the rest of the country.

"I am glad that Zeliang is here to give his inputs and the Government of India is very earnestly trying to live up to the vision of Prime Minister Modi, who has put the North East very high in his list of priorities. Soon, we are also going to contemplate a North East mega festival in Delhi, where we are going to showcase North East to outsiders to attract tourist conductors, tour operators in the film industry and we are in the process of declaring a brand ambassador for the North East," he said.