Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 3: Presiding over the meeting of Consultative Committee for the Ministry of DoNER here, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh hailed the support received by him from Members of Parliaments (MPs) from the North Eastern States.
Initiating the meeting after observing two-minute silence in the memory of former Lok Sabha Speaker and eminent Northeast leader & MP, P A Sangma, who passed away recently, Dr Jitendra Singh said, Sangma was always a valuable resource person in all Consultative Committee meetings held so far during his tenure as Minister of DoNER. He said, it is a remarkable feature that, regardless of party affiliations or ideology, he has been personally able to receive support of all the nearly 40 MPs from Northeast and they have actively cooperated in every new idea proposed by him.
Dr Jitendra Singh also thanked the MPs across the party lines for their enthusiastic participation in the discussion on Budget Grants for the Ministry of DoNER in the Lok Sabha and noted that during the discussion, which lasted nearly 5 hours, there was not a single exchange of bitterness or displeasure, and all the party MPs had encouraged him by offering their support for various initiatives in the Northeast. He also observed that the concerns on various issues were also based on objective assessment and, therefore, MPs from all the parties were unanimous even in certain difficult matters related to Northeast.
Reiterating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s special focus on the development of Northeast, Dr Jitendra Singh said, he has taken a serious note of the observation made by each MP, one after the other, for revisiting the pattern of financial funding in the Northeast. He admitted that there were serious issues related to delay in submission of DPRs, failure to submit timely Utilization Certificates (UCs) and escalation of project cost due to delay. The Ministry of DoNER, he said, is in the process of working out various options to come out of this piquant situation, which include, greater involvement of State Governments in processing the DPRs and re-defining the quantum of the financial installments in funding of each project.
Dr Jitendra Singh also proposed that unlike other Ministries, an attempt will be made to hold the future meetings of the Consultative Committee of Ministry of DoNER in one of the State capitals in North Eastern Region instead of holding these in the Union Capital of New Delhi. The focus in the coming months, however, will continue to remain on road connectivity and construction of new airports, he added.
Prominent among the MPs, who attended the meeting, were former Nagaland CM, Neiphiu Rio and Vincent Pala from Shillong, besides senior officers including Secretary DoNER, Naveen Verma and Secretary North Eastern Council, Ram Muivah.
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