Centre has prioritised development of North East: Saraswat

NITI Aayog member Dr Vijay Kumar Saraswat today said the Centre has prioritised development of the North East region.

"Science and technology, agriculture, health, education and infrastructure are the priorities and various programmes are being initiated by the Centre in the last three years," Dr Saraswat told reporters on the sidelines of NEHU's 24th convocation held here.

Dr Saraswat said "Professionalism in implementing these programmes is essential for the region to grow like any other state in the country."

Stating that the NITI Aayog has helped synchronise planning with the state governments, he said the approach is not a top-down one, but of consultation with the state governments.

Dr Saraswat said the Aayog will interact with each state based on their suggestions and the priority areas identified by them and then an action plan for the next three years will be evolved.

Earlier in the day, students of the university staged a protest against the failure of university authorities to address their 11-point demand, including proper distribution of degrees to students.

NEHU vice-chancellor Prof S K Srivastava said the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has approved setting up of a CSIR NET centre at the campus.

Nearly 9,000 students were conferred with degrees which include 128 PhD, 47 MPhil, 839 PG degrees and 7,975 Bachelor's degrees.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)