Shillong: In a bid to give a fillip to investment in Northeast India, the Ministry of External affairs in association with European Union Delegation to India and the Asian Confluence jointly organized the India-EU Connectivity Conference in Meghalaya on June 1 and June 2.

Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma and junior Foreign Minister of India Dr R K Ranjan Singh jointly inaugurated the conference. The sole aim was to strike out the key areas of investment in Northeast.

“The Union government is committed to ushering an era of investment in India and Northeast occupies a pivotal position in our lexicon. India has already inked agreements with many foreign partners to boost the investment scenario in the country,” Singh said.

Meanwhile, Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma stressed the importance of interstate and cross-border connectivity for the North East region as a whole and for Meghalaya in particular. He referred to India’s ‘Act East’ Policy, within which Meghalaya has an ‘Act South’ Policy focussing on the need to improve connectivity between Meghalaya and Bangladesh.

Sangma suggested a ‘Zonal Approach’ to connectivity, involving neighbouring states catering to each state’s needs. Technical sessions on the themes; Digital Connectivity, Energy Connectivity, Transport Connectivity and Connectivity and Beyond focusing on projects linking the Northeast with India’s neighbourhood, as part of the ‘Act East’ and ‘Neighbourhood First’ policies were held on the second day of the conference.

The MEA in the press release said, “Deliberations in the panel on ‘Connectivity & Beyond’ focused on the hurdles and bottlenecks faced by these projects, and on ways to ameliorate their impacts.”

The panel on ‘Digital Connectivity’ focused on improving the network penetration in the region by deploying infrastructure and simultaneously building the capacity of the various stakeholders to ensure meaningful connectivity.

During the conference, developing localized off-grid solutions through community participation was also stressed as the way forward to promote ‘Energy Connectivity’ in the region.

Experts deliberating on ‘Transport Connectivity’ lauded the several ongoing transformative infrastructure developments in road, rail and waterway connections in the region. They also suggested that there was a need for more. Deliberations also focused on identifying the right projects to source external funding.