Include all districts of Arunachal under NREGS: Rijiju

Itanagar, May 24 (UNI) Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal Kiren Rijiju has urged Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to include all 16 districts of his state under the National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme (NREGS) for overall development of this backward Himalayan state.

Pointing out that the native population of Arunachal is around 6.5 lakh, including 4.5 lakh living in rural areas, the MP, in a letter to the PM, said the average population of each district of the state was 25000, which makes the entire rural population less than a small district of any mainland state.

''Though Arunachal with a difficult topography and terrain is the largest state in the North Eastern region, the entire state with 16 districts should be treated as a single unit'', he advocated adding the scheme had been extended to only Upper Subansiri district of the state while most of the backward districts have been left out.

Extension of the scheme to entire Arunachal would give justice to the poor people living in far-flung areas of the state, he added.

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