Nagaland Governor Nikhil Kumar Friday said peace, stability and security are prerequisite for development to take place in the state.
He said this while addressing the ASSOCHAM’s Workshop on “Linking Budding Entrepreneurs with Govt. Schemes and Markets” together with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, Govt. of India, Govt. of Nagaland and National Research Centre on Mithun and Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Medziphema Friday at Hotel Japfü, Kohima.
While appreciating ASSOCHAM for focusing on the development of North Eastern Region, Kumar stated that lack of awareness is one of the prominent reasons for slow pace of development in the region especially in Nagaland. He said Nagaland has suffered from violence for six decades and now is on the peace path.
He called upon the people of Nagaland to help in brand building of the state outside the state as well as outside the country to attract investment. Quoting the example of India’s foreign currency reserve in 1990, Kumar emphasized on the need of investment in Nagaland from outside.
He said that Nagaland needs to open up as Government of India did in 1991 and encourage FDI in different sectors that helped in exponential growth of the country. He said that Public Private Partnership (PPP) model can pave way for speedy development condition and private investors should be ensured secured investment. Kumar emphasized on the bigger and positive role of the apex chamber ASSOCHAM for brand building of Nagaland.
H K Khullu, Agriculture production commissioner (APC), Nagaland, in his special address illustrated through slide show the present status of the production of different horticulture crops and the road map planned to make the state self sustainable in food production by 2025. He said that the people of Nagaland have the potential to be nurtured as excellent entrepreneurs provided they got proper capacity building and exposure to develop themselves.
He further added that farmers do not get fair prices during harvest season and need for infrastructure development in the region. Emphasizing on the need for increase private investment in the region, Khullu said banking sector can play a major facilitative role in providing credit facilities and linkages to the entrepreneurs.
RK Singh Programme Coordinator KVK, NRC on Mithun Jharnapani, ICAR research complex for NE region in his address remarked that food processing including meat has vast potential for development in Nagaland and there is need to bring in infrastructure required for developing value chain, linking consumers with the primary producers. He also said that “peace is nursing ground for all source of development”.
O.S. Tyagi, director, ASSOCHAM in his welcome address said that there are possibilities of increasing employment through value addition in farm products through the convergence of schemes by various ministries and departments.
He said there are immense possibilities and potential for development of agro based industries. There is need to identify products and areas for developing product based clusters and ASSOCHAM is in the process of adopting and developing these clusters and markets around the farmers, he added.
Tyagi informed that ASSOCHAM would be organizing similar kind of workshops across North East India in collaboration with different stakeholders for overall development of the region.
Bidyut Barua, Regional Director, APEDA said the region’s proximity to South East Asian markets has the potential to export products along the National highway 39 which links Myanmar, Thailand and other south eastern countries. He unveiled schemes of his organization for linking small exporters with overseas markets.
The workshop’s objective was to encourage budding entrepreneurs to nurture their inherent potential of establishing enterprises with the assistance from various schemes and initiative of both the centre and the state governments. The programme was inaugurated by Nagaland Governor Nikhil Kumar.
The workshop was also addressed by NABARD as well as representative of different departments of government of Nagaland.
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