Centre to pump more funds into NE

Agartala,Dec 19: The Centre has planned to pump more funds into the Northeast through Development of North Eastern Region (NER) Ministry and North Eastern Council(NEC), following the demand development of the region at par with the country.

Official sources here today said that NER had initiated the proposal to give a facelift in the region within the 11th Five Year Plan, while paying attention to the infrastructure development.

After the third plenary meeting of NEC yesterday, State Rural Development Minister Jitendra Choudhury, who represents the state in the meeting, told the sources that it had resolved to revise both activities and financial position of NER and NEC to bring an equilibrium in the development of the region and rest of the country.

The meeting has also discussed the successful implementation of the practice to spend at least 10 per cent the budgetary allocations of every ministry, Mr Choudhury said, adding that they had also demanded augmentation of NER to accelerate the growth of development in NE.

He said that Rs 1,200 crore disbursed through DoNER was "peanuts" compared to Rs 84,000 crore budget of Government of India and NEC had advocated the involvement of the State Government in planning inter and intra projects.

Meanwhile, he underlined that the ambitious Vision 2020 document would be formally adopted at a special session of the NEC proposed to be held at Shillong shortly, which was described as a 'peoples document' together with a document on poverty eradication would become a 'road map' for development of the region.

UNI