Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Oct 17: North Eastern Council (NEC) will be reoriented and developed as a state-of-the-art resource centre for the North Eastern States with necessary resources, knowledge and skill to execute innovative and strategic vision for the region. This will be in keeping with the changing times and the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as laid down by him during his visit to Shillong to attend the North Eastern Council (NEC) Plenary meeting in May 2016.
Disclosing this here today after convening a combined meeting of the senior officials of Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and NEC, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the NEC was set up way back in early 1970s with the intention to give special focus to the development of this region. However, he said, much has changed since then and with the setting up of an exclusive and separate Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) in 2004 during the regime of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, there has also been sometimes overlapping of functioning of the two institutions. Therefore, he said, the NEC requires to be reshaped after the identification of thrust areas and critical gaps in order to take up as many development initiatives as possible within the annual budgetary allocations.
During the last 3 years of Modi regime, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the budgetary allocations for both Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and North Eastern Council (NEC) has been increased. Moreover, the execution of the various development works has been expedited and in the about last two years, the spending of funds has been increased by 65% to 70%.
Partly, because of the lack of priority given to the region during the last several decades, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the NEC, which has a magnificent headquarter complex in the erstwhile capital of Assam at Shillong, could not function upto its full potential and its services remained under-utilized. He said, he visualises for the NEC the role of a visionary as well as a strategic leader for all the 8 states of the region, wherein it could lay down the roadmap for each of the separate States and areas based on specific requirements, specific attributes and specific needs. In this context, he said, NEC could also take up the leading role of promoting the bamboo industry as well as food processing entrepreneurship.
Dr Jitendra Singh issued instructions for initial written draft underlining the new format of NEC to be prepared within a timeline of one month, which could be discussed and redrafted within short time.
Union Secretary DoNER Naveen Verma, Secretary NEC Ram Muivah and other senior officials of Ministry of DoNER as well as NEC were present during the meeting.
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