Create jobs to curb terrorism in northeast: Tripura CM

Agartala, Aug 27: The newly-restructured National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) should create jobs in the north-east to put a stop to terrorism in the region, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said here on Thursday.

"NSDM should not only concentrate on skill development, but also create scope of employment," Sarkar told reporters after returning here from New Delhi, where he attended the meeting of NITI Aayog sub-group of chief ministers on skill development.

He said: "Unemployment is the root cause of the five-decade-old terrorism in northeast India. Inimical forces misguide the unemployed youths to join separatist outfits."

At the NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog meeting, he said skill development must be clubbed with education, agricultural, and industrialisation policies.

"The central government must allocate adequate funds to the state governments for the skill development schemes," he said.

The final meeting of the sub-group of chief ministers on skill development, held at NITI Aayog on Tuesday, was presided over by the convenor of the sub-group and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

The group consists of chief ministers of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Tripura.

Sarkar said the chief ministers of the northeastern states expressed their discontent at the current policy of the NDA government, and said that unless the special industrial package was revived, no investors would go to the land-locked northeast region.

He said the North East Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy (NEIIPP), which was launched in April 2007, was suspended in December last year affecting the growth of industrial development in the industry-starved region.

Under the NEIIPP, various subsidies were provided to the industrial units set up by the industrialists from both within and outside the region.