The rationale behind creation of any new district is that it is done for administrative convenience or ease of administration so that the distance between the district headquarters and remote areas are reduced, which, in turn, helps with better implementation and monitoring of government schemes and programmes and also maintaining law and order in remote areas. Districts can be also split or created based on their population size or various socio-cultural factors. 

In Arunachal context the first one is the principal driving force. The Governor and Chief Minister have remarked that the creation of the new districts was necessary keeping in view of the growing demands of the people and to bring the administration to their door-steps for all-round development. Rightly so. To ensure that the fruits of development percolate to the last man residing in the remotest corner of our state, landlocked with the most difficult of terrain, such realignments are relevant and necessary.

When we speak of district creation, it is almost the micro level version of the state creation mechanism, the aspects are largely akin. New district creations underlie the triumph of the federalism we behold. Over the last few months Arunachal Pradesh has also witnessed three more deliveries making it 25 in total. The new ones are the Pakke-Kessang district carved out of East Kameng district, LepaRada bifurcated out of Lower Siang district and the Shi-Yomi district made out of West Siang district.

Decades ofoverall underdevelopment have sadly managed to infiltrate a feeling of friendlessness and despondency in the minds of our people, who have been compelled to drag on a ‘hermetically sealed’ sort of existence. In such milieu, creation of new districts may go a long way in bestowing the much needed empowerment they have been yearning for long. The very feeling that ‘we have got something new’ will infuse a new sense of belonging in the minds of the people of these new born districts. With morale boosted to this high pitch, Arunachal’s singular objective for progress will get that extra mileage.

Detractors naturally will seek the elements of parochial politics, political appeasement, compulsive populism and so on in the whole process. Thus caution, coupled with pragmatism should be the approach in nurturing our newbies, with no room for intra-district inequalities which could easily be achieved by balancing the resource distribution within and across all the districts of our state.