Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh said here that the Post-COVID economy of India will look for unexplored potentials and under such circumstances, the hitherto lesser utilised resources from lesser projected regions will assume an important role. In this regard, he cited the example of bamboo from the Northeast and other vast resources in the North Eastern Region as a whole.

Addressing the “Amazon Sambhav online Summit” on the theme “Unlocking Infinite Possibilities for India”, Dr Jitendra Singh said, every adversity is accompanied by some virtue and one of the positive aspects of the tumultuous COVID phase has been that it prompted us to look for new avenues, new potentials and new resources to supplement the economy and make up for the deficit accruing as a result of the pandemic. This, in turn, has led to a situation, wherein the North Eastern region of India has an opportunity to emerge as the business destination of the entire Indian subcontinent, he said.

Lauding Amazon’s new initiative titled “Northeast Spotlight”, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this is indicative of the fact that even the business world of India has begun to realise where it should be looking to make further headway in Post-COVID economy. He said, when all the known conventional resources and potentials across the country appeared to have got saturated or exhausted, the Northeast will still have something to offer and that gives it a pivotal role in the times to come.

The Modi government, said Dr Jitendra Singh, is seriously conscious of this emerging scenario. That is why, he said, the 100-year-old “Indian Forest Act” has been amended to exempt homegrown Bamboo from its provision and the Import duty on bamboo has been hiked in order to promote domestic bamboo products. 

In the aftermath of COVID, said Dr Jitendra Singh, all the stakeholders and policy planners will have to give a special focus to small and medium businesses as well as the sustainability of new or recent Start-Ups. He said, in times like this, joint initiatives and joint ventures will be imperative to put back on track all that had tended to get off the track due to COVID related turbulence.