Kohima, February 6 (DIPR): Secretary NEC, Falguni Rajkumar held a meeting with Nagaland Chief Secretary, Lalhuma and other senior officers at the CS Conference Hall on February 6, 2008. During the meeting the Secretary NEC underlined the different roles played by NEC and DoNER, to clear confusions while proposals are being submitted. “NEC role has now become an Act of Parliament endorsed by all the state government”, he said. He pointed out that NEC Act was amended in the year 2002 by Act of Parliament as against the Act of 1972.
Rajkumar said that the states would function as constitutional bodies where NEC would co-ordinate the plans of the eight states. He added that plans should be so exercised that it has inter-state linkages. Stating geographical reasons as the bottle-neck for eco-development of the NE Region, the Secretary said the role of NEC is to oversee the developmental projects/plans of various states.
Highlighting on the DoNER Ministry he said that DoNER was at first a section in the Human Resource Ministry and was further up-graded to a Ministry in the year 2004. He said that the role of DONER is to see that funds meant for North East are spend in a concrete manner. “That is their primary job”, he added. Further he said that NEC is concerned with inter state projects which have wide ranging impact and will not take up any state specific schemes. “All state specific schemes should be given to the DoNER Ministry”, he maintained.
Raj Kumar also apprised the officials of the state that project proposals should be focussed on Vision-2020. Giving a scenario of the 9th Plan he said that in terms of fund utilisation Nagaland stood in the 6th position and continued in the same position at the end of the 10th Plan.
Further he said that from 11th Year Plan till 31st December 2007, Nagaland has jumped to the 2nd position which he said was creditable. Various departments presented a status report on the NEC sponsored schemes and the Secretary assured that the balance amounts would be released after submission of utilisation certificates.
The Chief Secretary who chaired the function said that equitable distribution would be difficult owing to scarcity of resource. He further said that states which have started getting mega projects are already benefiting and lamented that rest of the states will not have big projects out of the allotted 750 crores NEC fund. To this the Secretary NEC said that he has written a letter to the GoI for provision of special fund for funding committed state specific projects.
The Chief Secretary advocated strongly that as NEC is a council represented by 8 Governors and 8 Chief Ministers it should be empowered to sanction schemes. “NEC and DoNER should be technically strengthened, he opined. The Secretary was accompanied by Director NEC (Monitoring, Evaluation and HRD). Earlier in the day the NEC officials called on the Governor of Nagaland at Raj Bhavan and also visited the war cemetery. They also visited GIS and Remote Sensing Cell.
