Arunachal to be promoted as festival destination

ITANAGAR: With a diverse cultural mosaic and natural beauty, Arunachal Pradesh has the potential to develop as a festival tourism state, chief minister Nabam Tuki said. Addressing the 28th Shapawng Yawng Manau Poi festival of the Singpho community at Namsai in Lohit district on Tuesday, Tuki said the community's unique music, dance forms, cuisine and culture needed to be preserved and protected for prosperity of the region as a whole, officials said on Thursday."The festival is also a platform to disseminate the message to protect the state's rich flora and fauna, which is closely associated to our tribe," he opined.
Saying that peace is a prerequisite for development, the chief minister assured that his top priority is to check the growing menace of kidnapping and extortion in the district. Tuki observed that with the Trans-Arunachal Highway project now under PM's package, a number of other initiatives in progress under SPA, Bharat Nirman, PMGSY would radically alter the development scenario in the state.
Urging villagers to focus their efforts on horticulture, agriculture and commercial cultivation, Tuki assured every possible help from his government to steer the development of Arunachal. Urging the locals to shun opium cultivation, he asked them to prioritize the cultivation of cash crops like tea and rubber and promote self-sustainable agriculture to uplift the socio-economic condition of the people.