SHILLONG: As many of the North Eastern Council (NEC) Projects in Meghalaya and other North Eastern states are delayed by years, the North Eastern Council (NEC), secretary Ram Muivah has said that the Council would be very strict as far as implementation of projects are concerned and any project delayed for more than five years will be closed in consultation with the respective State Governments.
Speaking to media persons here on Tuesday, Ram Muivah said that respective State Governments would have to take over the liability if there was any the project which would be closed due to delay of more than five years.
However, NEC would exempt road and power projects since implementation of projects in power and road sector takes very long time.
The NEC has also written to all the State Governments about the delays in the project and accordingly, all the states have been asked to submit utilisation certificate within one year failing which Finance Ministry, which is the chief controller of accounts of NEC, would stop releasing funds for any project which is more than one and half years old.
While admitting that the NEC projects in Meghalaya are slightly slow in progress, Muivah, however, added that the all the NEC projects in Meghalaya were of very good quality.
In addition, the NEC also has three-layer monitoring mechanism to monitor road projects under North East Road Development sector programme.
“We have our consultants, regional level monitors and we have even appointed IIT, Guwahati as a third party monitor for the road projects under North East Road Development sector programme of the NEC,” Muivah said.
Stating that the people in Meghalaya are happy with the NEC projects, Muivah added that there were few roads in Garo Hills and Khasi Hills which are big challenges for the NEC.
“We have constructed the road and handed it over to the State Government but State Government does not have resources to maintain such long roads and hence maintenance has become a big issue,” he said.
Lamenting that the Finance Commission awards for maintenance of roads are very meager, he said that Niti Aayog had come out with an idea that 10 per cent of the funds should be mandatorily kept for maintenance of roads and NEC was thinking of adopting the same approach.
He also opined that all the North Eastern states should make a united effort to ensure that substantial amount is given for maintenance of roads in the 15th Finance Commission since state budgets were too small.
Stating that the NEC has constructed around 16000 kilometer of roads and they need huge money to maintain those roads, he added that the NEC had come up with a regional plan for the next three years issued coterminous with 14th Finance Commission and as the 14th Finance Commission gets over on March 30, 2020, similarly, all the existing NEC projects would have to be completed before March 30, 2020.
The total funds under the regional plan is around Rs 7500 crores for the next three years.
According to Muivah, the proposal has been supported by the Ministry of DoNER and is now with Ministry of Finance and it can even to go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, adding the proposal is likely to be approved in two months’ time.
The plan has been prepared in consultation with all the State Governments and various central Ministries.
Meanwhile, NEC under its new scheme North East Region Road Sector Development scheme (NERSDS), will also take up 50 road projects in the region with a total budget of little more than Rs 3500 crore.
The proposal is with Ministry of Finance and the roads which have been included under the project were identified by the State Governments.