‘Good Planning’ is must for harnessing natural resources of Arunachal Pradesh: Pema Khandu

Itanagar, November 14: Addressing the event ‘Sustainable Development Forum of Arunachal Pradesh’ (SDFA), Chief Minister Pema Khandu called on for ‘good planning’ for harnessing the vast natural resources of the state. 

Addressing the function, CM Khandu said that “though the state has abundant natural resources due to poor planning we are still unable to tap these resources to our advantage,” at Development Forum of Arunachal Pradesh (SDFA) was organised by Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI).

 

Strong political will is the need of the hour to bring in the desired change in formulating programme and policies in a more holistic way, he said. CM Pema added that there was a big gap in understanding sustainable activities in the mountain region till date but expressed hope that with the formation of IMI, such issues would be resolved soon.

He invited IMI to educate the government officers and youths through seminars, to do in-depth research and come up with state-specific programmes for the Himalayan state as it has many challenges of its own. While assuring to empower IMI through proper funding, he asked the chief secretary to examine the proposal submitted by IMI and also to incorporate the proposal of Arunachal Pradesh Bio-Resource Development Mission.

SDFA chairperson and secretary of IMI Fantry Mein Jaiswal highlighted the initiatives and activities taken by IMI. She informed that IMI had initiated independent platforms for discussing mountain’s development: the Sustainable Mountain Development Summit (SMDS) and Meet of the Mountain States (MoMS) which brings together states from IHR on a common platform to discuss their issues.

On the occasion, Head of State Horticulture Research and Development Institute Egam Basar highlighted the detail activities to be taken up under the proposed Arunachal Pradesh Bio-Resource Development Mission.