Reports that over Rs 15,000 crore is lying unutilized in the corpus of the Union Finance Ministry, reveals the dichotomy in the system. The reason for creating the Ministry for the Development of the North Eastern Region (MDoNER) was to speed up development in critical areas such as inter-state roads, bridges, airports and other communications networks apart from other infrastructural development in the North Eastern Region. The SP Shukla Committee report proposed a ten percent cut from all ministries for the express purpose of creating a corpus fund to service the specific needs of the North Eastern states called the Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR). Since the region suffers long periods of monsoon, the time available for road and other construction works is drastically reduced. This means that funds cannot be utilised within a particular financial year. Such funds are retained in the NLCPR as a special case. But the funds have now accumulated even while the North Eastern Council (NEC) which is the implementing agency for many of the projects has been cut to size with reduced funds allocation.
The proposal for creating a new institution because an existing one has failed to deliver is not based on pragmatism. Those who proposed the creation of DoNER should also have envisaged a new, viable and more robust role for the NEC. In fact, the two institutions seem to have overlapping roles. The NEC has now new become subservient to DoNER. Ministers holding the portfolio of DoNER have not done justice to their roles. They hardly sit at the NEC office in Shillong to monitor the implementation of schemes from close quarters. What is created is in fact another centralized institution based in the national capital which defeats the very purpose of DoNER. Arguments that the DoNER ministry would act as the liaison with different central ministries to facilitate funds procurement from the respective ministries also seems to have been lost sight of. DoNER certainly lacks vision and teeth if it is unable to create project proposals where the NLCPR funds can be utilised. It’s time to review the DoNER-NEC tangle and untie the knot that holds back development in the region. NEC which is more familiar with the problems of the North Eastern State must be empowered through vigorous funds flow, subject to strict monitoring and evaluation and public accountability.