Increase budgetary allocation for northeast: Arunachal CM

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul today demanded the Centre increase budgetary allocations for the northeast region and establish air connectivity with Itanagar.
Pul made the demands at a meeting with Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju and Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh here.
He asked Singh to request Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that the amount not spent out of non-lapsable pool should be kept at the disposal of the DoNER Ministry instead of reverting it to the general exchequer, a statement said.
Pul also demanded that air connectivity be established with Itanagar. To this, he was told that land has been identified for an airport in the Arunachal Pradesh capital.

Singh told him that Railways is also working on a plan to have a broad-gauge railway track in the northeastern states.
He also referred to the issue of delayed submission of utilization certificates leading to delays in the implementation of projects and said the DoNER Ministry is working to expedite the process, the statement said.
Issues related to streamlining of electricity and sanitation sectors and ways to improve the functioning of North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation, regulated by the DoNER Ministry, to provide better support for agricultural producte market were dicussed at the meeting.