‘DoNER At Your Door Steps’: Secy MDoNER

Meeting of DoNER team and state senior officers in progress at CS Conference Hall, Civil Secretariat Kohima on August 7. (DIPR Photo)

Kohima, August 7 (MExN): The Government of India has come up with the policy, "DoNER At Your Door Steps," said Secretary, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER), Inderjit Singh addressing a meeting held today.

DoNER team held a meeting with Chief Secretary, Temjen Toy and the AHoDs and HoDs at the conference Hall of Chief Secretary, Civil Secretariat, Kohima on August 7.

"Rather than you coming to Delhi, we come to you to interact, know your problems, take your suggestions, feedback and understand how best the Central Government and DoNER can do for the states of North East,” Singh added.

As per DIPR report, Singh and his team will be visiting different project sites in Kohima and Dimapur on August 8.

He said the Government of India always gives special assistance to North East for instance, the ratio of 90:10 funding of central and state shares in various projects for North East while other states have 60:40 ratio according to updated policy.

He also added that NESIDS schemes have 100% funding by the Government of India for the North East states. And Each Central Ministry has to spend minimum 10% of its resources in North East states although the region has only 3.48 % of the total population.

Lamenting on the slow execution, he said that the Centre expect the completion within 2 to 3 years generally for a project but the implementation of the projects are extremely slow in all the eight North East states.

Singh informed that for the NE, currently out of the total 13013 projects amounting to about Rs 20,000 crore, at least 24 projects are pending for more than 15 years and between 10 to 15 years, there are 110 projects pending involving almost Rs 2000 crore. He added that there cannot be any reason for a project to take that long for completion.

He also mentioned that the Ministry may refuse more money citing the lack of capacity to absorb the 'funds provided' due to weak implementation and very slow pace.

He asked the senior officers present to help the Chief Secretary in executing the projects efficiently. He further expressed his confidence on the officers present, and that works can be done only if the officers have the will to execute them.

The senior officers expressed their views and interacted with the team. Chief Secretary, Temjen Toy chaired the meeting. A power point presentation was given by Additional Chief Secretary, Sentiyanger Imchen.