The challenges facing greenfield projects in eastern and North-Eastern regions will come up for threadbare discussion at a national conference scheduled to be held here next week.

Organised jointly by two apex bodies – National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) and National HRD Network (NHRDN) – the theme of the conference is ‘The Greenfield Challenge: The East In Focus'.

Dignitaries

The Union Minister for Coal, Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal; the former Chairman of Coal India Ltd, Mr Partha Bhattacharyya; the present Chairman of CIL, Mr N.C. Jha; the Chairman of Steel Authority of India Ltd, Mr C.S. Verma; the CMD of NMDC, Mr Rana Som; the CMD of Central Inland Water Transport Corporation, Mr Praful Tayal; the CMD of Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Orissa, Mr C.J. Venugopal; the Managing Director & CEO, Petronet LNG, Mr A K Balyan, among others, will address different sessions of the two-day conference.

The National Vice-President, NIPM, Mr Somesh Dasgupta; the Chairman of NHRDN (East), Mr S. Das Pattnaik; and the Vice-Chair, NHRDN (East), Ms S. Guha, told media persons here that several challenges before the investors in new projects in the east and North-East had been identified.

Major challenges

Land acquisition, environment protection, infrastructure development, mobilising skill resources and aligning with the community stakeholders are some of the main hurdles.

Earlier, the industrialists would rarely take the community along while setting up new projects, with disastrous consequences on several occasions. “We may learn from the experiences of investors who have already invested in the east”, they observed.

It was pointed out that the eastern and the North-East regions, home to half of the country's population, are endowed with huge natural resources and yet laggards in growth. This situation, if allowed to continue for long, will give rise to social tensions that are already visible. The Maoists are particularly active in eastern States.

Historically, during the British rule, the region (there was no Bangladesh at that time and Burma was part of British India) was prosperous because the foreign rulers knew its potentials and exploited them.

Now China, through Kunming conference and other initiatives, is trying its best to develop the area and investing in the development of infrastructure in India's neighbouring countries including Myanmar (Burma). “We must not sit idle and allow the opportunities to slip out of hands,” they observed.

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