G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister for Culture, Tourism, and Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER) who participated as the chief guest of the North East Festival virtually on Saturday and interacted with entrepreneurs and potential startups.

The North East Festival is one such programme that is being organized as a part of the DoNER Dialogues – a series of events that interact with various stakeholders such as the youth, and entrepreneurs of the Northeastern region.

While addressing them, he said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly said, the North East Region is fast becoming the ‘gateway of national growth’. ‘Vocal for local’ or Atmanirbhar Bharat has empowered people with the needed support at every step. The Prime Minister has placed the development of NER as a foremost priority through the ‘Act East’ initiative. The DoNER Minister felt that the Northeastern region now has the opportunity to lead the development journey of New India. Over the last seven years, the Northeastern region has seen consistent progress in connectivity of roads, railways, airways, internet and logistics.

The Minister observed that the region is a rich reservoir of natural resources, minerals and forest wealth, flora and fauna, fertile land, exotic fruits and vegetables and unparalleled scenic beauty. Along with this, the geographical proximity to Southeast Asia, the region has immense trade potential as well. With the required infrastructure and market linkages, the North East can become a trade hub to South East Asia. For this, large scale efforts are being undertaken to improve connectivity both within the nation and with other states.

The Minister stated that the capital connectivity project is set to open a new chapter in the growth story of the region. He felt that the pace of development is visible and that road and highway projects worth over 85,000 crores are in progress across the region. Even in the case of air connectivity, the scenario has improved by leaps and bounds as 4G mobile connectivity and Wi-Fi Connectivity for Village Panchayats is being enhanced. This growth in connectivity should soon turn into economic prosperity for the eight states and the people.

The Union Minister highlighted the role of an enabler, that the government was playing by tapping into the inherent potential of the region by creating a conducive business environment. He said that the Government aims to tap this potential across the tourism sector, organic farming, agriculture, horticulture, IT sector, services industry, textiles among others. In all these sectors there is immense opportunity for entrepreneurship and investment.

Start-Up North East movement is gaining huge momentum through the North East Venture fund scheme. The scheme is helping the youth explore the untapped potential of the States and also make a good living for themselves.

Minister Reddy urged the startup owners to mentor budding entrepreneurs to help them further chart a future of growth and development. With the visible and rapid development in the last 7 years, DoNER Minister has urged the business community to confidently carry the message of ‘investment ready North East’ across the country and beyond.

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