The Arunachal Pradesh government has determined to develop three model villages along the Indo-Tibet border as a pilot project with an allocation of Rs 30 crore. This will contribute to the development of Eastern, Central and Western areas along the international border.

Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein thus informed on Wednesday while presenting the 2021-22 Budget in the state assembly. “Development of border villages will remain an important priority of our government. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the last few years have witnessed an unprecedented focus on border area infrastructure development, especially road connectivity. We will continue to work for the comprehensive development of border villages by providing them good road connectivity, power, water supply, health, and education,” Mein said.

The scheme would encompass innovative ways to dovetail the social economic-cultural needs of village life while establishing the model villages, he said.

“I assure you that these model villages will be built in such a way that we will feel proud of them. We will rope in our border guarding forces in designing and implementing this scheme,” he added.

The government also proposed to allocate Rs 5 crore for the repair of the foot suspension bridges in border areas used by the border guarding forces for patrolling.

“We propose to launch border village illumination programme thereby establishing small and micro hydels in remote border areas which can be used in local grid or off-grid mode. I propose to allocate initial money of Rs 40 crore to this project which we will implement by converging resources from the Centre,” the deputy chief minister added.

Team Eastern Interest

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