Then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao announced his government’s ‘Look East’ Policy of the early 1990s and afterwards the UPA-I and UPA-II had explored various ways of encouraging economic growth of the north east especially with regard to promotion of border trade. Eventually after the Modi government came to power in 2014, the focus and thrust changed from ‘Look East’ to current ‘Act East’ Policy. The new slogan seeks to convey the message that it is time to Act instead of talking about the policy. The north east region have been familiar with the policy, earlier as ‘Look East’ and later as ‘Act East’. The present slogan describes a “new-found salience” to India’s engagement with its “eastern neighbourhood and beyond. The excitement in the region is quite understandable as it also conveys a picture trade with the ASEAN countries.However, the north east will miss the bus it the states are unable to bring a turnaround in their economies. There are few vital areas where the potential could be harnessed for the foundation to carry the Act East Policy. These include- food processing sector,hospitality sector, agro based industry and minerals etc. The region can also hope to become an educational hub if the quality of higher education can be improved with reform in the education system. That also means education should be affordable to be competitive. The list also includes the need to promote entrepreneurial skills and to upgrade infrastructural facilities etc. Among the need was to make each of the state’s capitals and important cities interconnect by rail, road and air. Connectivity is usually taken for granted before embarking on pursuing any economic objective. In this regard, it may be pertinent to note that connectivity to the main gateway of Nagaland, at Dimapur with other states, is expected to meet needs of people travelling to and from Dimapur by road, rail and air. Roads linking Dimapur with Assam, till the inter-state check gates are well maintained. However, roads in Dimapur are showing signs of deterioration while national highways in Assam have attained the status of super highways either four-lane or six-lane. Air passengers emplaning at Dimapur have to walk to board the Air India flight while Air IndiGo provides a bus to the plane. Since expansion of Dimapur airport could not be done due to lack of area or due to encroachment airports such as Dibgrugarh and Jorhat grew. Dibrugarh airport has two aerobridges and situated over 386 acres and the length of the runway is 7500 feet. Dimapur airport has been reduced to an area of around 300 acres out of the 621.58 acres acquired by the government. .Rail connectivity in Nagaland is acutely inadequate to serve the rising number of passengers. Instead, Dimapur railway station is eventually going to be abandoned in terms of development since a double track cannot be constructed due to rampant encroachment. Assam has six airports and others such as a proposed airport at Diphu is underway. The state government since 2003 is not interested in either developing Dimapur airport nor ensuring eviction of encroachers from railway lands for expansion. Unless the gateway is developed, Nagaland will face certain problems in development as this requires prioritising objectives based on economic ground realities and not other considerations.
