CM urge Centre to increase NEC’s budget to Rs 2,000 Cr

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 8, 2019

SHlLLONG: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has asserted the need to increase the budget for the North Eastern Council (NEC) to Rs 2,000 crore. “To enable the NEC to fulfil its mandate of promoting development of the Northeastern region in the real sense, its budget should be increased to about Rs 2000 crores annually,” Sangma said while speaking at the 68th plenary meeting of the NEC held at Guwahati, Assam on Sunday.

He was of the opinion that unless such resources are made available, the NER Vision 2020 providing for the comprehensive development of NE States will only remain a pipedream.

The chief minister said another reform that is urgently needed is with regard to the process for approval of the projects submitted by the state governments to NEC.

He pointed out that the current process is long winding and hence time consuming leading to inordinate delays in project approval.

Currently clearances are required from four different committees – The Project Identification Committee (PIC) chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of DoNER recommends the projects, the sectoral empowered Committee (SEC) chaired by Member, NEC vets and endorses the selected projects, the State Level Empowered Committee (SLEC) chaired by the Chief Secretary does the technical and economic appraisal of the DPRs and the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) chaired by the Secretary, DoNER appraises projects costing Rs 5 – Rs 15 crore.

He said the current protracted approval mechanism needs to be rationalized while citing for instance, both the Project Identification Committee and the Standing Finance Committee may be chaired by the Secretary, NEC.

“This will facilitate expeditious identification, appraisal, approval and implementation of projects. Furthermore, the delegation of financial power to the Secretary, NEC may be adequately enhanced to empower NEC and to make its functioning effective,” he added.

Sangma further reminded that in the last plenary meeting, the members of the NEC had unanimously raised the issue relating to the decision of the Expenditure Finance Committee under the Ministry of Finance to remove many important sectors from the purview of NEC.

Currently, he said NEC is focussing only on specific sectors like bamboo, piggery, regional tourism, higher education, tertiary healthcare, telemedicine, science & technology etc.

The Guidelines of the NEC need to be revised to incorporate several crucial sectors such as Sports, School Education, Power, Primary and Secondary Healthcare, Irrigation, Flood Control and Water Supply, Tourism and Skill Development.

“This expansion of mandate will enable the NEC to function as a true regional development forum,” he said.

Sangma said another crucial issue is with regard to the guidelines of the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS).

“I welcome the scheme and I am happy that Meghalaya has received a total sanction of about Rs 175 crores for 6 vital infrastructure projects. We have already submitted additional projects of about Rs 300 crores. I urge the Ministry of DoNER to sanction the additional list of projects submitted as well,” he said.

“However, there is a need to relook at the guidelines of NESIDS to make the scheme more effective. First, the lower limit of Rs 20 crore on the project size should be lowered to about Rs 10 crore, so that small but significant projects can be taken up. Besides, lowering of the minimum cost of the project would also allow the State Governments to take up more projects under the scheme. Secondly, in the case of road projects, NESIDS covers only those projects that connect tourist spots. This provision needs to be relaxed so that we can invest in road connectivity in the broader sense,” he said.

The chief minister further expressed concern over the inability of the Ministries of the Government of India to utilize the 10% of their budget for schemes and programmes in the North Eastern States.

He said these unutilized funds are not being placed adequately at the disposal of either the Ministry of DoNER or the State Governments for the implementation of development projects.

“I would, therefore suggest that the substantial accumulated amount lying with the Ministry of Finance may be allocated to the NEC for implementation of inter- sectoral and integrated development plans in the NE States, towards the achievement of NER Vision 2020,” Sangma said.