NESAC to help NE states with various developmental projects

A top official of the NESAC said that for the past several years the northeastern states have been using the technologies of the space application centre, situated in Meghalaya's Umiam.

"An important meeting of the NESAC will be held in Agartala on December 22 to review the various works and outcomes of the NESAC. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) Chairman Dr S. Somanath would attend the meeting," the official told IANS.

The Union Home Minister is the President of the NESAC Society while the ISRO chief is the Chairman of the NESAC Governing Council.

In a bid for the proper, effective and timely implementation of numerous projects and schemes, the Central government has been monitoring their progress and accuracy through satellite, drone and mobile apps, the official said.

He said that several hundred projects were identified in over 2,000 different locations across the eight states and these have been geo-tagged through satellite images and mobile apps.

According to the official, the Union Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) in collaboration with NESAC has developed a project monitoring mobile applications.

The NESAC was established in 2000 as a joint initiative of the Department of Space and the Shillong-based North Eastern Council (NEC).

The NESAC review meeting on December 22 is a part of the 72nd Plenary Session of the NEC, to be held in Agartala on December 20-21.

Amit Shah during the previous NEC meetings also urged the Chief Ministers to make full use of facilities at the NESAC for flood control, irrigation, tourism, afforestation and agriculture work in the region.

The Home Minister had said that the Centre is committed to making the northeast flood and drug-free within the next few years. He has issued an appeal to keep North Eastern states free from the use of single-use plastic for environmental protection.

"Work has also been done to promote the use of technology in administration by using the NESAC," the Home Minister had said.

It was decided in the earlier meetings that each state in the northeast should appoint a nodal officer for NESAC in their respective states to maximise and better utilise the facilities available at the space application centre.

In the Plenary Session of the NEC, DoNER (Development of North Eastern Region) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Governors and Chief Ministers of eight northeastern states and top officials of the Central government and all northeastern states will attend.

The NEC plenary session was supposed to be held on August 31 and September 1 but it was postponed due to the devastating floods in Tripura.

An official of the Tripura Planning Department said that the progress of various ongoing and proposed development projects and other important matters were scheduled to be discussed in the NEC meeting.

The Union Home Minister, in the previous NEC meeting in Shillong, had said that in over 50 years of its establishment, the NEC has increased the pace of development of the region by providing a policy-related platform to all the states and simplifying the solutions to their problems.

He had said that in these over five decades, more than 12,000 km of roads have been constructed in this region, 700 MW power plants have been established and many institutes of national excellence have also been established under the guidance of NEC.

Highlighting the role and scope of NEC under the Act East Policy, the Home Minister had said that in the last few years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has achieved significant success in solving the problems of law and order, insurgency and borders in this region.

With its headquarters in Meghalaya's capital Shillong, the NEC, a regional planning and statutory advisory body for the eight northeastern states including Sikkim, was constituted under the North Eastern Council Act, 1971, and came into being on November 7, 1972.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujitchakrabortyne@gmail.com)