Centre sanctions Rs 5,000 crore to provide 2G mobile coverage in Northeast states : Prime Minister

New Delhi: Centre has sanctioned Rs 5,000 crore to provide 2G mobile coverage to this area for better connectivity said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of the Hornbill Festival in Kohima.

He said that Rs 5000 crore has been earmarked for improvement of intrastate power transmission systems and a similar amount for boosting 2G mobile connectivity.

The Indian Prime Minister,Narendra Modi has described the entire Northeast region as a "Natural Economic Zone" - NEZ - whose potential had hitherto remained untapped.

In a bid to improve telecom services in the northeastern states, the government will invest Rs 5,000 crore to set up over 8,000 mobile towers in the region.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had last year recommended an investment plan to improve services in north east India.

He said it was a decade since former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited Nagaland. He assured the people of the state that they would not have to wait so long again for a Prime Minister to visit. He said he would come back to see that all he has mentioned becomes a reality.

The Prime Minister also mentioned the rich biodiversity, and youthful English-speaking population. He said these would ensure that tourism and investment would come to the state. He said the region must capture a part of the global IT outsourcing business.

In the meantime, the TRAI recommended a 2 per cent discount on annual licence fees for telecom operators that cover at least 80 per cent of habitations with a population of 250 and subsidies for installation of solar power units at telecom towers.

For more, the regulator also recommended investments to provide seamless connectivity across national highways in the north east region covering Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.