Abstract
The northeast region of India has occupied an important place in Indian policy discourse for a long time. This is the only region in India for which there is a separate ministry in the union government apart from the fact that these states have been receiving fiscal incentives for their development. Nevertheless, development has rather been elusive in the region. The region is also quite rich in natural resources of different types. Nobody has, however, made a strong case that the so-called resource curse could be the possible reason for its continued underdevelopment even by Indian standards. Rather what came out often was the lack of connectivity and ethnic conflicts. It is, however, difficult to stop ethnic conflicts in the short run which are also partly due to continued underdevelopment. Improving connectivity has therefore been the main thrust of development strategies of the region, of course, with some flanking measures.
Given this context, a new book on the subject is expected to do a reality check of what went wrong with the development strategies of the region and their implementation. A rather unusual issue that found a place in the book is the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not unexpected as the pandemic has brought some issues into focus and it also brought new challenges to development almost everywhere. The spread of COVID-19 in the region was marginally lower compared to the national level. While proactive efforts of all the stakeholders might have played a role as noted in the book, the fact that the region has a relatively lower density of population and that it has no mega-city might have been also responsible. The book rightly noted that even though the spread of the pandemic has been relatively lower, the economic impact of the same has been relatively higher. This is not unexpected. Economic disruptions came mostly due to reduced connectivity and a region that already had connectivity challenges suffered more. Moreover, the region has high out-migration mostly working in service sectors that suffered more during the pandemic. Apart from the national initiatives, several state governments in the region adopted state-level initiatives towards post-COVID economic recovery. However, it was possibly too early to have a proper assessment of these measures.
The second chapter of the book is on state initiatives and localization of SDGs. Some states of the region have been at the forefront of localization of SDGs. In fact, Assam has been the first state in India to launch a roadmap for implementing SDGs and a state-level indicator framework. The state-level initiatives have been complemented with national-level initiatives as well as NITI Aayog has launched the NITI Forum for northeast as a unique platform for bringing leaders and experts from the region as well as from the outside to support the states in their efforts to achieve SDGs in the region.
The third chapter of the book is entitled, Drivers of Economic Prosperity and Sustainable Development. The title looks quite forward-looking; the drivers themselves, as discussed in the book do not appear to be quite strong. In recent years, however, some of the NE states have shown encouraging economic growth. The share of industry in the state economy is also quite high in some states. However, the higher share of industry is largely due to a high share of non-manufacturing industries or handicrafts/informal sector. The share of modern manufacturing is quite low except in Sikkim. Moreover, exports of the region are dominated by agricultural and mineral products and contribute very little except in Sikkim. Some of the smaller states also have a higher share of manufacturing but overall exports are quite low. Lack of proper connectivity appears as a major handicap, but there are also governance challenges as the region has not been able to make much progress in ease of doing business compared to the rest of India.
The share of agriculture is quite low in the region and the state of Nagaland is an exception where it stands at 41%. However, the region has huge potential for agriculture and cultivation of fruits, vegetables, plantation crops, spices, fisheries and animal husbandry already occupies a prominent place. The region is also a major producer of some products like pineapple, kiwi and a number of non-timber forest products. However, the region has not been able to take advantage of this to take a lead in food processing. Development of this sector will help the region take full benefit of agricultural goods many of which are perishable. The region, however, is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its fragile geology. Therefore, the region needs well-designed climate adaptation plan as suggested in the fourth chapter of the book.
Health and well-being are an important aspects of sustainable development which is the subject matter of the fifth chapter. It is quite comforting that the region as a whole performs better in this area compared to the national average. The progress in this regard is, however, uneven. The state of Assam which is the largest in the region in terms of population, however, fares far below the national average on all indicators of health and well-being. While the healthcare infrastructure is not so bad in the region a substantial population lives in remote areas and providing them adequate healthcare facilities remains a challenge.
The sixth chapter deals with education, skill development and entrepreneurship. Interestingly, performance in education indicators mirrors the performance in health indicators. Most states perform better than the national average though some states, Assam in particular, fare below the national average. Interestingly, however, dropout rates are quite high and education infrastructure remains weak. Skill development, however, is not good enough, particularly in areas where the region has good potential. A number of local and national government skilling initiatives are underway which might change the scenario.
The seventh chapter deals with communication, connectivity and infrastructure development. While there has been significant improvement in road and rail infrastructure in recent years, overall, much more is needed. Like many other authors, this book also argues that the region is pivotal to India’s Act East Policy. However, there has been hardly any progress despite similar narratives being pushed for decades. When concerns are frequently raised about the difficulty of developing better connectivity of the region with the rest of the country through the Siliguri corridor, the possibility of the region providing better connectivity between the rest of India and Southeast Asia does not appear quite promising. Construction of highways to China or reviving the old roads that were essentially used for strategic purposes might not serve much of an economic purpose as the economic hotspots of China are quite far away from the region. Connecting the region with the rest of the world through Bangladesh, however, is quite important and some positive developments have occurred in this regard in recent years.
As discussed in an earlier chapter, the region has given substantial attention to SDGs. Financing of SDGs, which is discussed in the eighth chapter, however, remains a challenge like most developing regions of the world. The central government has transferred substantial resources over the last two and half decades as 10% of the annual plan budget of 52 central ministries is earmarked for the region which is significant as the region’s share in the total population of India is less than 5%. The region has also benefitted from external financing through the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. Internal resource mobilization in the region, however, remains quite low. Many states are also burdened by high-interest payments and salary bills.
The book covers a wide ground and has brought many important issues to the fore which will be of use to policy makers and any reader interested in the development of the region. The book, however, does not have chapters on Introduction or Conclusion. It has an executive summary though which can serve as an Introduction. Nevertheless, a chapter on Conclusion joining the dots would have been useful to a reader to easily remember the key takeaway from the book.