The North Eastern Council is facing acute shortage of funds, hampering implementation of several of its dream projects like setting up of educational institutes, skill development centres and sports academies.
"We have so many dream projects to implement, but there is no money. Whatever little money we receive, it has over 99 per cent utilisation. So, we need more money," North Eastern Council (NEC) Secretary Ram Muivah told PTI.
Fund allocation to NEC substantially decreased after 9th Five Year Plan from 5.12 per cent of the total outlays for the North East to 0.03 per cent in the current fiscal, he added.
"When NEC was established in 1972, the first year's fund allocation was Rs 500 crore, which was a big amount then.
However, it has increased to just Rs 950 crore in 2016-17.
Out of that, Rs 150 crore directly goes to North-East Road Sector Development Scheme (NERSDS)," Muivah said.
Besides, every year NEC gives Rs 3 crore to Border Roads Organisation, Rs 47 crore to Alliance Air as Viability Gap Funding for operating flights in loss making routes and Rs 100 crore to North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for sustainable livelihood programme, he added.
"So practically, we are left with only Rs 600 crore in this fiscal. Out of this amount, around 70 per cent goes to ongoing projects or to clear liabilities, which currently stands at Rs 2,100 crore," he said.
That means, only 30 per cent of Rs 600 crore is left for new projects and this amount needs to be divided between eight states," Muivah added.
NEC has nine different sectors under it to work upon, but has not been able to take up any important new project only due to lack of funds, he added.
Muivah informed that the North East-specific organisation wants to set up a number of educational centres as per global standards, including an international institute of mass communication and a school of architecture and planning, along with an institute of music, art and theatre.
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