2006: we were declared No 1 State among 12 Eastern States by India Today. We are ahead of West Bengal also which was once considered as the industrial hub of our country.

Why I have given these figures about Korea, Japan and China is just to drive home the point that these countries are going to be India’s major commercial and investment partners. All these three countries have rather very low base level of English speaking people. Hence these companies will require a large number of people who speak their languages. Similarly Indian companies are also doing massive business and making investments in these three countries. Indian companies will also require a large number of Korean, Japanese and Chinese speaking Indian people to work with them. Software companies like Wipro, Oracle, IBM, Infotech and HP are making lucrative offers for the post of translators and interpreters.

A large number of tourists are coming to India from these countries and there will be increasing number of Indian tourists who would be visiting these countries. For a tourist communication is very vital. This means there will be huge scope to visit these countries for the young boys and girls who know these languages.

On top of this we are looking forward to increasing the quantum of India’s overland trade with China through Nathu la in a big way. We are also requesting the Union government to locate Special Economic Zone in Sikkim where we can invite a number of Japanese and Korean small and medium enterprises. Here also we require a large number of Korean and Japanese speaking people in our State.

We are also seriously thinking of training our nurses to go abroad. There are huge demands of nurses in Europe, Japan and United States as the number of aging people is very fast rising in these countries. They require nurses in big numbers. At the moment most of the demands for the nurses in these countries are catered by South East Asian countries like Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia and our own neighbouring country Sri Lanka. A nurse gets a monthly salary varying from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakhs in Japan. This is a very attractive venture for our nurses and dynamic youngsters.

I think Sikkim and Sikkimese will be culturally closer to Japanese, Korean and Chinese in terms of their many traditional habits and traits. Our people are friendly, warm and hospitable and hence we would fit the bills very well.

So we plan to create a huge pool of foreign language speaking Sikkimese so that they can cater to these rising needs. We would encourage our young boys and girls to learn a variety of foreign languages and be proficient. They can do wonders.

I therefore, set aside Rs 70 lakh for the year 2007-08 for promoting foreign language learning in the State. This fund will be operated by the Directorate of Capacity Building which will be concurrently set up in this fiscal year. If need be, we shall enhance this allocation further. Depending upon the responses of our people we ultimately plan to have a multi-language school in the University in Sikkim.

I also propose that our schools will start teaching foreign languages. The concerned Department will soon work out the details in consultation with the famous School of Languages in Jawaharlal Nehru University and other institutions. For this I allocate a sum of Rs 40 lakhs. Let us bring the best teachers available in the country in some of these crucial language including Korean, Japanese, Chinese, French and Spanish.

Though agriculture today contributes slightly over 20 % of the total state domestic product the population dependent on agriculture and allied activities would be more than 60 percent. I must admit that our agriculture sector is relatively weaker than both secondary and tertiary sectors. There are various reasons for this slow down in agricultural performance. In fact for the entire country a major concern is the relatively sluggish growth in the agriculture sector. We cannot afford to have slower growth in agriculture.

However, despite diversion of land for horticulture and other non-agricultural purposes, it is indeed heartening to note that there has been a significant increase of 9.30 % in the production of food grains from the year 2002-03 to 2005-06. This is indicative of the improvement in the level of productivity of farming activities with improved seed inputs and scientific technologies being judiciously transferred and applied at the field level through effective extension services. Special emphasis will be made in the area of seed production with supportive facilities for seed testing and certification so that the State will be fully self-sufficient with regard to seed requirements in respect of all major farm crops. The use of bio-fertilizer including vermi-compost will be encouraged in consonance with my Government’s policy to convert Sikkim into an organic State.

Sikkim’s inbuilt strengths are natural resources. Our main driving vehicles are horticulture, floriculture and medicinal plants. In all these, we will have very few matches within the country. In the harnessing of all these strengths we have however, been facing four serious difficulties. Firstly, we have not been able to produce many of these items in a commercial scale both because of lack of training and technological inputs. Secondly, the market access is very difficult and limited. Thirdly, there have been no serious R and D activities that are useful for the farmers in all these areas. Finally, there has been a lack of any substantive investment in all these sectors.

Given the scare land resource in our State, we would like to make big interventions in the horticulture-floriculture related activities as we would like to convert this as a main profession of our younger generation farmers and entrepreneurs. This will be in addition to what the horticulture mission would envisage in its prospective programs. The focus will be on seeds production, tissue culture, technology development and transfer, packaging, marketing network, production, storage and training and capacity building.

We would like to also bring private sector and foreign investors in this crucial activity area. In addition, I would also like to introduce concept of Technology Transfer Assistance involving the services of the Panchayats. Under this, Gram Panchayats could bring any appropriate technology that could help increase productivity, farm efficiency and production of any agricultural or horticultural crops. This technology could be brought from anywhere in India and abroad.

To complement various similar intervention, I would also like to stress on training and capacity building of the farmers in any of the agriculture related activities. These trainings could be located anywhere in India and neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Nepal.

Substantial investment could be conceived of in terms of crops diversification. Under this a farmer could be provided a soft loan by the cooperatives exclusively for the purpose of growing high value vegetables like mushroom, celery, broccoli, zucchini, artichoke, asparagus, green beans, snow peas, Brussels sprouts and leek and herbs like oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage and basil. There is huge market for all these vegetables both in India and abroad.

The Government will also now extend research grants to undertake research in areas of folk and traditional medicinal practices to the students in Sikkim. This may be related to research leading to Ph D degree or any independent research conducted under the guidance of a competent authority and noted institutions.

I also inform the members of this August House that all these development initiatives will be undertaken from the 2 percent allocation made in each department for training and capacity building.

In the context of mega projects being introduced and with an objective of making a big leap forward, we would like to soon introduce a legislative action to undertake a new project known as "Initiative on City-State". The basic goals of this Initiative on City State will be as follows:

The entire State is very grateful and thankful to the Union Government for passing legislation to set up a Central University in Sikkim. This is a giant move in the education sector. An institution of higher learning was one of the long standing demands of our State. I would like to state that we plan to make this University a unique one in terms of physical structures, curriculum, research orientations, faculty recruitments and admission policy.

We shall have to rejuvenate the entire education sector as this is the foundation for any of our future development initiatives. Therefore, I am announcing the following measures which are to be implemented by the concerned Department in this fiscal year.

India is the country that receives highest amount of remittances from its citizens working abroad. Remittances from overseas Indians have increased from $ 2.1 billion in 1990-91 to $ 21.7 billion in 2004 which constituted 10 % of the total global remittances. This made India the highest remittance receiving country in the world followed by China (US$ 21.3 billion), Mexico (US$18.1 billion), France (US $ 12.7 billion) and Philippines (US$ 11.6 billion).

Today the overseas Indians are estimated at over 2.5 crore spread across 110 countries. There are millions of Indian workers working abroad. Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka are the states which send maximum number of workers from their states. For instance, in 2004 alone 4,74,960 people emigrated abroad for work purposes. Out of this 23 percent was from Tamil Nadu, 15 percent from Andhra Pradesh, 13 percent from Kerala, 6 percent from Maharashtra, 5 percent from Gujarat and another 4 percent from Bihar. Look how the economies of Kerala, Punjab and Gujarat have been transformed by the remittances, technology, knowledge, skills and capacity brought from abroad by their people who work in various foreign countries.

Out of these total 4,74, 960 workers who went abroad for jobs, 37 percent went to United Arab Emirates, 26 percent to Saudi Arabia, 11 percent to Kuwait, 7 percent to Oman and 6 percent to Malaysia.

As per the record of the Government of India, during 1998-2004 over 23,85,000 workers went abroad from India for work purposes. The number of people from Sikkim who went abroad during this period of 1998-2004 was only 37.

Sikkimese people are also equally capable of working abroad. If more and more Sikkimese go abroad for work purposes, they will bring knowledge, technology, skills, experiences and financial resources to the State. An upward social mobilization will take place in Sikkim. We shall become more outward looking. Our state will be known all over the world.

In the next 5 years, our government will make utmost endeavour to encourage Sikkimese people to go abroad for employment purposes. We will soon design a programme where we have information and knowledge about the opportunities abroad in a variety of jobs. Our State will coordinate with the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs of the Government of India. This exercise will be done by the Department of Sports and Youth Affairs along with the Department of Human Resources Development.

Monitoring and Evaluation

This august house will be delighted to know that our Government has been constantly striving to take the maximum benefits to the people from all the development projects and programmes. There are instances of delays in project implementation. There are cost over runs. There are incomplete projects and there are also possible leakages and misuse of funds. We have taken administrative and punitive measures to correct them in the past. Further we all have noticed that the fund allocations to the state will now be increasingly made conditional to proper monitoring and evaluation of the projects. This is true of both governmental and non-governmental sources of funds.

However, we increasingly realized that all projects actually require strict monitoring and evaluation. We need to make the system transparent by fixing responsibility and every individual related to the project accountable to the system, government and the people. We, in fact, need to institutionalise the entire mechanism. With a view to do so, we set up Directorate of Economics, Statistics and Monitoring and Evaluation (DESME). Now the second batch of officials is undergoing training in monitoring and evaluation in the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. I am told that over 200 officials belonging to various departments will be trained in next couple of months. I am of the firm belief that with this pool of trained officials we shall have a head on start on scientific monitoring and evaluation in the State. We need to give them adequate autonomy for their smooth functioning.

We have also seen that we are not able to use a huge chunk of funds given by the Union Government and the North Eastern Council on the ground that our Departments are not able to write the project proposal correctly, scientifically and convincingly. Since these project proposals do not meet the technical and other criteria, they are invariably rejected. I am of the firm belief that just by writing sound project proposals we shall be able to mobilise 20-30 percent more resources for our development in the State.

There are problems with the data, statistics and information supplied by various departments. On top of this, the Union government has its own mechanism to collect and disseminate these data. As a result, we have found that there are serious discrepancies in various available data. For instance, the drop out rates in the schools as mentioned by our HR Department and that are available with the Ministry of Human Resources Development vary quite a lot. There are problems related to samples, methodology, time period etc. We need to therefore, have one single source of data.

Let me make following few recommendations in this regard.

All these new proposals related to monitoring and evaluation will be implemented by the Department of Development Planning.

I would like to urge upon the young Sikkimese entrepreneurs to open as many SMEs as possible. It could be a TV and computer repair shops to a modern printing press. It could also be a fast food joint to conference facility providing venture. We would make adequate provisions for their development in the State. This is also covered by the North East region investment policy.

In this context, we are also proposing to set up Special Economic Zone where many of the small and medium enterprise from both India and abroad could be located.

Environment and Green Mission

We need to further consolidate on our past investments in the area of environment & ecology. Towards this end in view, I propose to declare in this budget, the commissioning of the Environment & Green Mission with the sole objective of accelerating the process of greening the State over a reasonable time-frame. In order to make this Mission statement meaningful, I propose that while the SPWD (Roads & Bridges) & the RMD Departments shall apportion 2% of their budget allocation for executing avenue plantation activities as an in-built component of all road construction projects, all other development departments shall also set aside 1% of their plan budget for complementing the objectives envisaged under this Mission. The Hon’ble Members will appreciate that this initiative is primarily based on our avowed plan to make Sikkim clean, green and a garden state in the Country.

There are reports of steady retreat of glaciers in Sikkim. It could spell disaster for Sikkim’s fragile economy and may even lead to devastating floods and ultimate dryness in river Teesta. This could be rather disastrous for the array of hydel power plants that are being built (planned) in the Teesta basin. It could also change the entire hydrological map of our region. Only a couple of days back the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released its report entitled " World’s Top 10 Rivers at Risk" which mentioned that Ganga and Indus of India are at risk of drying up. It also included Africa’s Nile and China’s Yangze, America’s Rio Grande and Australia’s Murray-Darling. The recent reports that the Chinese Government has plans to divert waters in Brahmaputra to feed other drying rivers do also indicate the seriousness of the problem. I have raised this issue in the last meeting of the National Development Council.

However, I feel we should ourselves start the process of undertaking a very primary study at the State level. Therefore, I would like to propose the constitution of an Expert Group to study the state of Glaciers and its impact on water system in Sikkim. I set aside a sum of Rs 30 lakh for this purpose. The Department of Science and Technology would operationalise this project.

Many path breaking things are happening across the world. New techniques of production, newer concepts of national security, changed perceptions about educational systems are new vistas in international relations and foreign policy are widely witnessed. There are changing alignments among various development agencies, emergence of a large number of non-state actors, widening role of media, changing aspirations of youths and far reaching impact of globalisation. These are all discussed and deliberated upon in various national and international forum.

Sikkim and Sikkimese people should not lag behind in both thinking process and in sharing of information and knowledge. I believe, more we are near to the base of advancing global knowledge more we will be near to the process of civilizational growth. I also believe that a well informed Sikkimese community could take advantage of both national and international opportunities. Some one once said :

"The Great Thing in this World is,

In the past we have done several intellectual exercises that have really benefited all of us. Now we would like to institutionalize the process. Therefore I would like to propose that the whole of fiscal year 2007-2008 we shall organize a series of lectures by eminent personalities in various fields. We plan to invite even the Nobel Laureates. This exercise will be done by the Department of Information and Public Relations.

Our young boys and girls are extraordinarily creative and talented. Many of them do not get the opportunities to foster their latent talents and creativity. Our is an equal opportunity society and hence all the deserving talents should get equal exposures. I therefore, announce the following projects for this fiscal year.