Our Correspondent
Kiphire | December 2
Speaking as the chief guest at the regional seminar on socio economic transformation of the North-East at Zisaji Presidency College, Professor P Lal, former Pro Vice chancellor, NU Lumami today disclosed that Kiphire has the highest mortality rate in the state and added that health is an important area to take into consideration so that transformation reaches the right level.
Development, health, infrastructure, and climate are the four main key areas which Professor Lal considered to be the main focus subject for transformation to take place for the region. Accepting that nothing in the universe is constant, he said everything has to go through an evolutionary process and the North East region has undergone lot of changing processes over the few decades.
He meanwhile informed that while life expectancy in main land India is 63 years on average, in Nagaland it is 73 years, which may be because of physical activity, food habit and clean environment. Delivering the key note address, Professor MK Singh, Finance Officer, NU gave an overall account of the entire region and also gave a statistical report on how the region would transform in a few decades.
He observed that development in Nagaland has created two class, the privileged class and deprived class. This he stated is because the developmental activities are not inclusive and the fruit of development is not reaching the grassroots people. The professor also said that if socio economic transformation is to be achieved, developmental activities should be sustainable and can be achieved only if it is inclusive. Professor Singh also sought suggestions and ideas of the participants to cope with the needs of the region for socio economic growth.
Benajmin Longkap, SDO (c) HQ who spoke at the seminar also felt the need to have such events so that places like Kiphire are also prepared to face the fast changing developmental activities of the nation. He appealed to the student community to be a catalyst in bringing change.
He further assured that any outcome of the seminar would be forwarded to the government at the earliest so that it is included in policy for the growth of the region.
