Nagaland’s lone Lok Sabha MP Tokheho Yepthomi said allocation of funds to the north-eastern region under North Eastern Council (NEC) and Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) has stagnated in the past few years.
He said the stagnation in fund allocation will make it very difficult for the region to develop at par with the rest of the country.
Tokheho said this while participating in the Union Budget discussion in Lok Sabha on Monday, a release said.
Reiterating that the north-eastern region is dependent on roads, he urged Prime Minster Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to revise the allocation of funds for the region in the coming days.
The MP also pointed out that natural rubber farmers, specifically in the South and Northeast, are facing difficulties due to increased import of rubber from Southeast Asian countries.
He highlighted the problems being faced by natural rubber industry in the country, a release said.
The parliamentarian sought to point out that there has been a sharp fall in rubber prices over the last few years due to low import taxes, resulting in decrease in domestic rubber prices.
He urged the union finance minister to hike the import duty on import of natural rubber to enable domestic rubber farmers to get a good price for their produce.
“The MP also lauded the two per cent tax on withdrawals of more than one crore in a year, which will increase digital transactions and also aid in controlling black money,” the release stated.