Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said prior to 2014, the North Eastern region suffered economically due to myopic policies of the successive central governments.

But soon after the Modi government took over in 2014, the prime minister had stated that every effort would be made to bring the region at par with more developed areas of the country, he said.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the work culture of Northeast has got revolutionary transformed in the last eight years, said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel.

He was speaking here at the inauguration of a two-day regional conference along with Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu.

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India (DARPG), in collaboration with the Arunachal Pradesh government organised the conference on ‘Bringing Citizens and Government Closer through Administrative Reforms’ from 18 to 19 August.

Singh said that it is only after Modi took over as the prime minister that such conferences are held in the farthest North Eastern states like Arunachal Pradesh as well as other hilly and backward areas to empower them in every walk of life.

He said, Prime Minister Modi is working to make Arunachal a major gateway to East Asia.

Modern infrastructure is set up, seeing Arunachal’s role regarding national security, the statement said.

Nature has endowed Arunachal with a lot of its treasures and the Centre is also trying to take the tourism potential of Arunachal to the whole world, it said.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of conference, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Khandu said administrative reforms are a must for bringing change in governance and bringing it closer to the people and the state government is constantly adopting reforms for transparency, accountability and speedy disposal of files.

The conference is an effort to create a common platform to share experiences in the formulation and implementation of best practices in administrative training, capacity building to facilitate citizen centric governance, improved public service delivery through e-governance, transparent, accountable and citizen-friendly effective administration.