Agartala: Tripura government sought action from the central government to liberalise the business with neighboring Bangladesh in the just concluded 70th plenary session of Northeast Council (NEC) chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah; Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha told media here on Monday.
He proposed making NEC the one-point solution centre for Northeastern states, which can act as Niti Aayog for the region.
A number of development projects in the northeastern region have been pending with different ministries, and need to be persuaded but, the state machinery is not able to do where NEC can play the coordinating role to clear the projects.
“Agartala was derived from the Agar tree, which has a huge commercial value in the global market and North Tripura has huge cultivation of Agarwood. Therefore, I requested to set up the headquarter of the Agarwood Board in Tripura, as the state government has already made a policy for Agar cultivation,” Dr Saha stated.
He highlighted that Tripura produces the best quality tea and it has a band now but, couldn’t export it to Bangladesh despite huge demand because Bangladesh imposed 96 percent import duty on tea and said, “I proposed to take up the matter with Bangladesh counterpart for reducing it to 20-30 percent and to allow Tripura tea to participate in Moulvibazar auction centre. Also, Tripura needs a tea auction centre and a place in the e-market platform.”
“Tripura is the second largest natural rubber producer in the country and in the meeting, I demanded a modern smokehouse for rubber processing and a special incentive for the indigenous rubber growers. Raw latex from Tripura has demand in Bangladesh but, we requested the central government to take up the matter of supplying processed rubber to its Bangladesh counterpart,” the Chief Minister stated.
Maitri Setu over River Feni in South Tripura has connected Tripura with Bangladesh last year. Little more work on Bangladesh’s side is still left, which has been brought to the notice of the home minister to take up the matter with that country to speed up the work.
Tripura has been waiting for no objection from Bangladesh to build up an integrated development complex at Muhurighat and Manughat of South Tripura to facilitate cross-border trade, he mentioned.
Tripura has also demanded to establish a national gymnast academy and an international standard swimming pool for budding sports talents, as the state has huge potential for athletics and gymnastics but is lagging behind the infrastructure, Dr Saha said adding that the immediate beginning of international flights from Agartala MBB airport has been demanded.
