Growth in Northeast has been transformational: Jyotiraditya Scindia

Northeast is growing 1.6x faster than India, with ₹4.48 trillion in investment commitments and a push on logistics, credit and connectivity, says Scindia

Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is mostly in news as the communications minister, is equally engaged with his other portfolio — minister of development of north eastern region (DoNER). In a conversation with Gulveen Aulakh and Nivedita Mookerji last week at his office, Scindia highlighted that about ₹4.48 trillion investments have been committed to the northeast region, which is growing much faster than India’s economy. Edited excerpts: 

At a time when reform is in the air, what is the way forward for the DoNER ministry, almost 25 years after it was formed? 

From 2014 to 2025, the Prime Minister’s vision was not only ensuring development of Uttarpoorvi Bharat and Ashta Lakshmi, but also ensuring that the Northeast leads India’s paradigm of development and progress, both internal to the country and external to the world. Over the last 11 years, you had close to about 10 per cent of GBS (gross budgetary support) constituting roughly about ₹4,800 crore of investment per year into the Northeast. That number has now grown to ₹1.02 trillion a year. The disbursements and devolution to the Northeast have grown to almost ₹6 trillion over this period. Now those are transformational sums of investment. The Prime Minister’s vision was that the Northeast must become the engine of our economic growth, and in the last 18 months, my experience has been extraordinary. Where the world is growing at 2.5 per cent GDP growth rate, India has clocked 8.2 per cent in the last quarter, roughly 6.8 per cent on a decadal growth rate, which means that we are 2.5 times, or close to three times the world average. As for the Northeast, the decadal compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for all eight states is 10 to 12 per cent. So, the Northeast is growing at almost 1.6x times that of India, and close to 5x times the world. 

Do you think this pace of growth will continue? 

I’ve taken a 10 year decadal average, which tells the rhythm and the direction in which an economy is growing, so therefore it has been transformational. The Prime Minister has been at the head of that change by not only the investments but also the interaction and the engagement with the Northeast. The Prime Minister has gone to the northeast almost 75 times in the last 11 and a half years. He has also made it mandatory for all ministers in the government of India to visit the Northeast, and there have been close to 700 visits by ministers to the region. That tells you the story. 

What is the plan to make the Northeast an even more integral part of India, because there have been instances when people from those parts feel that they are not part of India? 

I don't agree with you, because I think you're talking from a point of view of not having spent time in the Northeast. You need to go and spend time in the Northeast. In the last 19 months, I've made 21 visits to the Northeast. Starting this year, I've made a plan that every month I'm spending three to four days in a particular state, and not only sitting with the chief minister or ministers, but actually going deep down into that state. So I’ve spent October in Arunachal Pradesh, November in Meghalaya and December in Nagaland. Next month, I’m looking at either Tripura or Assam. We have 45 million population across these eight states, 75 per cent of this population is below the age of 30, you have a huge demographic dividend. Across all eight states, the average literacy rate is 93 per cent. In the last 18 months, I have held three major events that look to doing exactly what you mention. In December (last year), the Home Minister and I held a banking summit in Agartala where we took private sector, public sector banks, looked at deepening credit flows into the Northeast, put up very specific targets, and I’m coordinating with the Department of Financial Services and the finance minister for ensuring the deepening of credit flows and the banking pipeline and infrastructure into the Northeast. In May of this year, after about 10 months of roadshows across nine cities of India, along with two chief ministers in every roadshow, for the first time in the history of independent India, we held a Northeast Investor Summit in Delhi, which again was graced by the Prime Minister, and we built a book of close to ₹4.48 trillion of LOIs (letters of intent) and MoUs (memoranda of understanding) for all eight states. We’ve got an average close to about ₹30,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore per state out of the ₹4.48 trillion. Now, I’m concentrating on conversion on ground. At this point of time, close to about ₹35,000 crore to 40,000 crore worth of investment has been converted on ground. I’m following up with the chief ministers on their asks. I'm monitoring it on a weekly basis. 

How are you planning to attract industry to the Northeast? Tatas have come with an OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) plant, what about others? 

That is actually the remit of every state government. That said, my job is to make sure that I attract investment, and I make sure that I address the pain points of an investor. I have laid out a full logistics pipeline for each state, and I've looked at 12 parameters that need to be fulfilled to have an efficient logistics network in each of these states. I have done a contrast study of all eight states. Where is it that they have fulfilled those conditions, and where is it that there are still blanks that need to be filled — I monitor that on a fortnightly basis and I'm glad to report to you that across 96 parameters, we have completed 65 to 68 and the rest hopefully will be completed prior to the next NEC (North Eastern Council) plenary, which should be held sometime in January ... I wanted to ensure that we in the Northeast do not have a state-centric view, but we have a regional perspective, and in order to do that the Home Minister decided that we will set up eight high level task forces, chaired by a chief minister, with three to four other chief ministers as members, on agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, logistics, export and import, protein, handloom and handicrafts. 

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is an integral part of the Northeast. How do you ensure that BSNL gets a major play? 

I’m not the minister of BSNL, I'm the minister of telecom (laughs). Under the Digital Bharat Nidhi, we have a plan for 4G saturation. I monitor on a weekly basis the number of towers to be set up. We’re looking at a 100 per cent 4G saturation plan in the next four to five months. I'm not going to limit this to only the Northeast, but scale it across India.