NE region remains among backward regions of country: DoNER

New Delhi, Oct 11 (UNI) The North Eastern Region (NER) remains one of the most backward regions of the country due to paucity of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building, which are the key requirements for sustainable development of the Region and its people.

According to an official release issued here yesterday by DoNER, the region has remained insulated from the national mainstream and the NE State officials have little opportunity for quality training and generally suffer from lack of exposure to the latest development/trends in the country.

The lack of proper communication and administrative skills affect the delivery of services at all levels. There is a continuing need to provide exposure to officials of the NE towards development in the rest of the country for improving the delivery of public services.

The technical staff in the government is often poorly equipped for planning, preparation of Detailed Projects Reports (DPRs), and implementation and monitoring of projects. As a result, the quality of implementation of projects suffer, apart from delays and cost over-run, the release said.

The release notes that though many NE States have a high literacy rate, however, due to the lack of industry and tertiary sector as well as reduced employment opportunities in the Government sector, the problem of education-unemployment is very acute.

Besides, the remoteness and peculiar goegraphic situation also contributes to the lack of development in the NER.

The Region does not have many institutes of high quality and even the few that exist are often unable to attract the best faculty or technical manpower from outside. Although the Government is taking steps to set up appropriate institutes, this will take time. The only viable solution in the short term is therefore, to develop and upgrade the skills of the existing manpower, utilising the best institutes in other parts of the country.

There is a strong need to bridge the gap in the technical and managerial skill requirements in the NER. The basic strategy has been to select important developmental sectors, identify the gaps and select appropriate training institutes to build customised programmes as per training needs assessment, relevant to the NER.

The target groups include government officials, potential entrepreneurs and unemployed educated youth.

The achievements during the current year includes an amount of Rs 1000 lakh (RE) allocated under this scheme for the year 2006-07 as against Rs 8 crore during 2005-06. During the year, the Ministry has tied up with National/Regional institutes and Centres of Excellence to design and conduct training programmes for these groups. The objective is to enhance skill and upgrade human resources of NER as a long term investments for the benefit of the Region. The areas identified are Good Governance&Delivery of Public Services, Project Preparation and Implementation, Skill Upgradation for Employment, training of Artisans and Entrepreneurship Development Programme.

UNI