Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched several initiatives and Memorandum of Understandings under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) extended by various companies on day one of the Nagaland CSR & Investment Conclave 2022 at NBCC Convention Centre here.
Addressing the inaugural function of CSR, Sitharaman, who is on a three-day visit to Nagaland on Monday, launched several projects under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and acknowledged Nagaland’s potential as an organic producer by saying the state was endowed with a wealth of organic products which should be aggregated by the people for markets within and outside India.
She urged corporate and industries to choose Nagaland although it would take a little bit of effort.
The Union Minister mentioned the growing importance of healthcare and logistics, in which the youths can take active part.
She expressed the need to set up CII training centres for the young people to get skilled along with certificates and take leadership roles in those sectors.
To promote interest in Science, she said NITI Aayog had come up with the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) under which science labs could be set up in every school.
Though Nagaland could have set up such laboratories in all schools, she regretted that this had not been done yet and asked the State Government to ensure that these labs were installed as soon as possible.
She remarked that home stay had a huge potential in boosting the local economy.
She advised that visitors should be encouraged to stay at Naga homes to familiarise them with
Naga culture.
She asked the State’s Tourism Department to come up with innovative ideas in this regard.
In the Agriculture sector, she said drones were helping in improving agricultural output as these helped in better mapping, understanding of the terrain and knowledge to farmers regarding soil nutrition to help them decide what crop was best cultivated, the union minister appealed to youth to develop interest in drones.
Sitaraman said youth of Nagaland were well educated, carried themselves well and had great strengths and a lot of government and private investment were in the pipeline aiming to strengthen infrastructure in the country, both existing and new, brown field and green field.
To create a synergy among projects like railways, airports, seaports, seaports, waterways and manufacturing hubs, she said energy of young people was required. She appealed to the youth to prepare themselves in this regard and take leadership roles.
Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said that this conclave would not have been possible without the personal interest and support of the Union Minister.
He thanked the Government of India for bringing greater focus on development of the North Eastern region of the country. As a result, not only Government but also the private sector is looking at the North-East with a fresh perspective. The mandatory requirement of spending for CSR by companies has opened up immense opportunities for companies to participate in grassroots development activities, while not losing sight of their business commitments.
