Arunachal urges Central funds amid lack of support due to China protests

Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein, on September 30 urged the Central government to allocate funds for development projects, citing a lack of support from agencies like the World Bank due to ongoing protests by China.

Speaking at a meeting chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the Civil Secretariat, Mein said that the state has been deprived of externally aided projects from organisations such as the World Bank, ADB and JICA due to protests by China.

Mein said, "This not only deprives us of financial benefits but also of the technical knowledge that comes along with externally aided projects which is a big deterrent in our developmental activities. The ministry may kindly make suitable alternative arrangements to meet the gap."

Mein, who also holds the Finance, Planning and Investment portfolios, urged Sitharaman for a special one-time assistance of Rs 2,000 crore for the replacement of about 5,500 dilapidated semi-permanent type (SPT) residential quarters for government officials.

Furthermore, he added, "Most of the SPT residential buildings and official buildings for the government officials were constructed during the NEFA days by the CPWD. It is proposed to replace the dilapidated SPT quarters and district offices with multistoried RCC buildings for accommodating the present strength of state government employees and integrate working of different departments in a single place," he said.

He also said that the development will ease the working process and improve the turnaround time of the movement of files hence increasing the efficiency of the work of the district administrative office, further adding that the replacement of SPT buildings with multistoried ones will also retain more government land in the district for the development of other important developmental infrastructures.

"Due to the paucity of resources with the state, a special one-time assistance may be considered please," he said.

Mein also urged Sitharaman to give due weightage to the cost disability index while allocating resources among the states, especially the hilly states.

"The state's inhospitable topography, challenging climatic conditions and communication bottlenecks make the cost of creation and maintenance of infrastructure extremely high. It is estimated that the unit cost of service provisioning in the hilly areas is 2.5 times more than the plain area. The cost of construction is escalated not only because of high transportation expenses but also due to non-availability of local skilled and un-skilled manpower," he said.
(With PTI inputs)