Projects worth Rs 10,200 cr going on in NE by DoNER

The Centre Tuesday said it is carrying out various projects worth Rs 10,200 crore across the Northeastern region under the DoNER Ministry, an official said here on Tuesday.

The projects will be completed by the end of 2019-20 financial year, the development of north eastern region (DoNER) ministry Secretary Naveen Verma said.

"Out of these, around Rs 3,500 crore worth projects are new and these are fully funded by the Centre. The old projects are funded in 90:10 ratio," he added.

"Earlier, the central projects under our ministry were funded in 90:10 ratio with the state giving 10 per cent of the cost. But now, all the projects for the eight states are fully centrally funded," DoNER Minister Jitendra Singh said at a press conference here.

The eights states of the Northeastern region are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

Many of the states were delaying submission of utilisation certificates (UCs) and the DoNER ministry is trying to overcome that, he said.

"Through an online system of UCs, we have brought in transparency and it has led to faster clearances for the states," Singh told reporters after the inaugural session of the second meeting of the 'NITI Forum for North East' here.

"These projects will be completed by 2019-20 fiscal. Out of these, around Rs 3,500 crore worth projects are new ones and these are fully funded by the Centre. The old projects are funded in 90:10 ratio," he added.

North Eastern Council (NEC) Secretary Ram Muivah said a few of the road projects are 10 years old, while most of the old projects are five years old.

On the delayed projects, Singh said, "We are not here to answer the misappropriation of earlier governments. We are here for the new ones. We are here for transparency and there is not a single case of misappropriation in those."