Investment in roads has improved rural sector — Kikon

Dimapur, Dec. 14 (EMN): Advisor of Information Technology and Communication and NRE, Mmhonlumo Kikon, on Wednesday, shared that investment in the road sector in the past 10 years, where 4-lane roads and connectivity projects to the state capital from all districts have been taken up, has resulted in the improvement in Nagaland’s rural sector.

Kikon was speaking during the e-Naga Summit 2022 on the theme ‘Towards promotion of secured digital services and investment opportunities in the state of Nagaland’, organised by the department of Information Technology and Communication, and in collaboration with Indo-British Business Forum, United Kingdom at the Directorate of Information Technology and Communication.

The advisor highlighted that e-Naga summits held in the past had people from across the world share not only their ideas and programmes, but also participated and engaged with the Nagaland government to ensure the objectives of the state in creating e-governance and IT culture.

He mentioned that the state government's vision is to attract investments, to engage the people with experts and companies from other parts of the country and collaborate with the state government. Kikon added that in the e-district project, the IT department has enabled 47 e-services where all the government department’s websites are hoisted on the data centre, which has made services easy to access online, an update form DIPR stated. 

CEO, Indo British Business Forum (IBBF), United Kingdom, Kavita Sharma said IBBF is an opportunity-based firm committed to bringing investments in India. She mentioned that the UK and the Indian governments have signed a free trade agreement worth 52 billion pounds, where for the first time, UK fruits will enter India without any duty and vice-versa for the fruits from Nagaland such as kiwi, pineapple and dragon fruits.

She also said that the firm was interested to invest in the power sector and renewable energy and would consider climate control. She also said that basic infrastructure in the state was not available and Nagaland needed more investment in roads, adding that there were opportunities for young entrepreneurs and the small and medium industries that need to be addressed.

Principal Secretary of IT, Power and CMO, K D Vizo in his address, said the department of Information Technology and Communication was created in 2004 and the e-Naga Summit was organised in 2015 to promote e-governance culture in the state.

He mentioned that initially they tried to create awareness amongst the politicians, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and businesses but the youths and the college students were more interested as their response was ‘huge’.

He also said IT culture is about bringing transparency, accountability, and efficiency and changing the mindset of the people about the work culture and society. He stressed that the biggest challenge is to change the work culture and the people along with technological change.