NE NRI meet in December in Guwahati

Guwahati, Aug 18 (UNI) A meet of the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) of North East India will be held in December this year at Guwahati, a first-of-its-kind meet for the abroad settled people from this part of the country.

Announcing this at a press meet here today, Assam Industries and Commerce Minister Pradyut Bordoloi said the meet will be held on December 21-22 to coincide with the Christmas and New Year celebrations, as the NRIs visit home during the yearend holidays. The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has been entrusted with the task of organizing the meet. A committee has already been formed for the purpose, with Mr Bordoloi heading it and CII NE chairman Abhijit Dutta as the member-secretary.

The minister said, '' The CII has already started working and has formed a special cell also. The recently formed Industrial Investment secretariat cell of the Commerce ministry of Assam will coordinate with them.'' He said NRIs from the region who have achieved excellence in their fields will also be honoured during the meet and discussions on how the NRIs can help in development of NE will also take place.

Technology innovation, rural technology, health care,energy, education, market channels, IT, urban development and infrastructure and tourism are some of the sectors which will figure prominently in the discussions, he added.

Mr Bordoloi said the NRIs who had met Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi during his recent US and UK visit had shown keen interest in investing in their homeland and this NRI meet was planned keeping in mind their sentiments.

He said there were over 6,000 NRIs from Assam alone and the figure would go up several times when all the NE states are taken together.Mr Bordoloi also said that besides tendering formal invitations, various networking sites and the internet is being used to communicate the dates to the NRIs.

A website will also launched very soon, he added.

UNI