Tripura CM demands more efforts on poverty eradication and education

Agartala, May 12 (UNI) Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today urged the Centre to take special initiative for universalisation of education and eradicating poverty in the Northeastern states for ensuring the pace of development at par with other parts of the country.

Speaking at the 56th Plenary Session of North Eastern Council (NEC) here, Mr Sarkar said the finalisation of Vision 2020 for the NE region had been included as one of the major items for discussion in the session, which emphasised on providing employment to all and making available health and sanitation facilities.

''It is very important to plan on how to achieve this in a realistic time frame and locate the sources of funds for this, because a huge amount of resources would be required, particularly for NE states,'' Mr Sarkar underlined.

He also stated that the session would highlight initiatives to address the issues of human resource development, skill upgradation and introduction of appropriate technologies as well as to increase the plan size of NEC to benefit the constituent states.

Mr Sarkar also reiterated the demand of getting access to Chittagong seaport of Bangladesh as part of the Centre's Look East Policy and said that Bangladesh could provide access to the mainland for NE states through its inland waterways, surface links and air routes.

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