Centre to invest Rs 100 crore for border area development in NE

Aizawl, May 25 (UNI) The Ministry of Home Affairs has earmarked a special allocation of Rs 102.3 crore for Border Area Development Programe (BADP) across the NE region for 2007.

During a meeting of screeing committee on BADP, led by the Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Home affairs, Balwan Singh here today, it was disclosed that the Centre would implement the BADP through the respective state governments of NE region, including Sikkim, in the identified border blocks to meet the special developmental projects of the population, who are living in the remote and inaccessible areas near the international borders.

The new schemes under BADP aims to improve in the areas of education, health, agriculture and allied activities and infrastructure development along the border areas.

Besides this, under the new scheme, subject to obtaining clearance from the forest department, projects in reserved forest areas could also be undertaken by the state governments.

Arunachal Pradesh would get the lion's share of Rs 32.98 crore followed by Tripura (Rs 16.62 crore), Assam (Rs 13.52 crore), Mizoram (13.02 crore), Manipur (Rs 7.50 crore), Meghalaya (Rs 7.30 crore), Sikkim (Rs 6.58 crore) and Nagaland (Rs 4.78 crore), under the special Central assistance on BADP.

The allocated funds would be released in two installements. The first installment would be equal to two-thirds of the annual allocation, while the second installment would be the remaining one-third.

All the state governments were instructed to closely moniter and carry on inspection from time to time on the implementation of the schemes under BADP so as to ensure quality and timely completion of works.

The monthly reports of the inspections carried out by the concerned officers of the state government were instructed to be sent to the Ministry of Home affairs.

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