The North Eastern Council’s Consultative Meet in Shillong during the last two successive days carried out some vital discussions concerning economic upliftment of Northeast region. The need for a comprehensive and exclusive Northeast Tourism Policy has been felt for long and it was encouraging that it had been discussed. Likewise, talks were also held regarding having a favourable policy environment for growth of Start-ups in the region.  Needless to say, both of these, among many others are the real necessities felt by stakeholders while working on ground level and sooner they are rolled out, the better it will be for the region in catching up fast with the mainland in terms of economic parity.
Coming to tourism, there must be nothing more left to elaborate on the beauty of the region which has enchanted travellers from all across the country and globe. But, if its potential is always a great source of economic hope, difficulties in its flourish are also far too many which are the constant inescapable factors that actually overlap all positivities. The proposed exclusive Tourism Policy for the region should address these issues first and must devise a structured and fast-result-oriented approach to eliminate the bottlenecks. World Bank representatives who participated in the meeting sounded hopeful of the region’s tourism prospects and gave some valuable inputs in this regard. But the foremost difficulty which needs immediate attention, which few will differ is the fact that the ‘ease of travel’ for tourists here is nothing praiseworthy. If there had been an index to make a comparative analysis, surely, Northeast would lag far behind the other parts of the country in this regard. Lack of meaningfully comfortable connectivity still remains the single-most disappointment and discouragement for any leisure-seeker. NEC being the facilitator of the region’s overall development targets must take notice of it and the tourism policy that is being contemplated must give a proper space to it. There still remains huge work undone regarding connectivity infrastructure and that should go on simultaneously with tourism-specific infra build-up and an effective pan-India marketing strategy. A lot is awaited regarding the much-hyped Start-up, which in the recent past has emerged as the redefined form of entrepreneurship, finding wide acceptance among youths. NE youths lag here due to want of knowledge and it is expected that NEC plays the role of a proactive enabler since there are resources which the indigenous knowledge can turn into saleable objects of great commercial viabilities.
Northeast’s potential, both coming via nature’s blessings as well as those offered by its human capital have long been discussed in academic and seminar platforms. It has always been the region’s wish that they become realities and NEC being officially the ‘prime catalyst’ of  socio-economic development here must not let its people down.  

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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