New Delhi: Former Army Chief Gen VK Singh on Thursday justified a triology on Northeast, a project which has come under the scanner due to its reportedly high cost, saying it aims at national integration and claimed his successor was an "integral part" of the project.
He said the project has the potential to bridge the "narrow domestic walls" and regional points of view.

Present Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh was an "integral part" of the project and is fully in the picture vis-a-vis the objectives and targets the Army had set for itself, said a statement was issued by Gen Singh`s office.

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It came days after a media report suggested that the three-part trilogy on Northeast was under scrutiny.

"The trilogy was envisaged in 2009 with primary intention of building ground towards national integration... The trilogy has the potential to help bridge the narrow domestic walls and regional point of views that we as a people have hemmed ourselves with," the statement said.
"The trilogy was envisaged in 2009 with primary intention of building ground towards national integration... The trilogy has the potential to help bridge the narrow domestic walls and regional point of views that we as a people have hemmed ourselves with," the statement said.

On the role of Gen Bikram Singh, who was the then Eastern Army Commander, the statement said he "was an integral part of the project and is fully in the picture vis-a-vis the objectives and targets that we had set for ourselves."
Singh said Phase-II of the project required a larger outlay of funds as the objective was to translate the books into the vernacular and distribute sets, free of cost, to all educational institutions across the country. Accordingly, certain steps were taken towards this end and the project was brought to the attention of the President of India as also the Prime Minister, he added.

"As a matter of fact, the Army Day `At Home` in January 2011 was shifted to the larger Manekshaw Centre so that blow-ups from the Northeast Triology could be showcased to the political top brass. As a follow-up, a detailed communication was then forwarded to the PMO," the statement said.
He said the books were formally released on Army Day 2012 and Phase-II of the project was marked to Defence Ministry by the Prime Minister.
Over the claims that the project has been put on the backburner, the statement said "This is again distortion of facts and inferences being drawn, which may have nothing to do with reality."

The statement said "Northeast Triology is an "extremely important" work and that it had succeeded in covering a lot of ground in covering the region though it had limitations.

"A project of this nature at its very outset was something that would also take a lot of time to execute, a span that would transcend the tenure of not just one maybe three or four Army Chiefs," the statement said.

It also said finding funds and charting the way forward for this project is a challenging task and may not be that easy.
PTI