From Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: The Minister for Development of North Eastern Region, Jitendra Singh, on Monday asserted that this year’s budget is, in fact, on the higher side and his government gives top priority to the North East.
Singh said in case of Ministry of DoNER, the budgetary allocation for 2020-21 is Rs 3,049 crore as against Rs 2,670 crore in the revised estimate of 2019-20 (an increase of 14.2 per cent). Out of this, the provision for development of infrastructure is around Rs 2,900 crore compared to advance estimate (2014-15) of Rs 1,719 crore.
Singh said that besides policy of 10 per cent gross budgetary support (GBS) to the region, the gross budgetary support to 54 non-exempt ministries increased by 12.62 per cent in budget estimate 2020-21 at Rs 60,112 crore over revised estimate of 2019-20 at Rs 53,375 crore. He also highlighted that in 2014-15, actual expenditure on 10 per cent gross budgetary support was Rs 23,819 crore.
Moreover, the ministries, with an allocation of more than Rs 1,000 crore for NER, include Ministry of Agriculture, Farmer’s Welfare (Rs13,380.98 crore), Department of Telecommunication (Rs.1,332 crore), Department of Health and Family Welfare (Rs 5,000 crore), Department of School Education and Literacy (Rs 4,705.66 crore), Department of Higher Education (Rs 2,721.30 crore), Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (Rs 2,149.40 crore), Ministry of Labour and Employment (Rs 1,137.16 crore), Ministry of Power (Rs 2067.50 crore), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (Rs 6,780 crore), Department of Rural Development (Rs 5,608.35 crore) and Ministry of Women and Child Development (Rs 2,972 crore).
Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Department of Posts have seen significant increase in their NER Budget, Singh said.
In NER, one new and 10 non-operational airports are likely to be operationalised in this period. Krishi Udaan will also be launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on international and national routes. This will immensely help improve value realisation, especially in North East including tribal districts.
The minister said that to build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, inclusive of milk, meat and fish, the Railways will set up a ‘Kisan Rail’ through PPP arrangements.
There shall be refrigerated coaches in express and freight trains as well.
This would enable perishable agri-horticultural produce of the North East to be transported to the rest of the country, thus, contributing to the government’s target for increase in farmers’ income.