NEW DELHI, March 13: The Centre on Monday approved additional central assistance of Rs 635 crore to last year’s flood, landslide and cloudburst affected Northeastern states including Rs 47.326 crore to Meghalaya under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).
The assistance to Meghalaya falls way short of the state’s demand for a sum of Rs 300 crore from the Centre to meet the losses sustained by flood and landslides.
Incidentally, the central government had deputed inter-ministerial central teams to these states, immediately after the calamities, without waiting for the receipt of memorandum from them.
A high-level committee under the Chairmanship of Union Home Minister Amit Shah sanctioned the amount following large-scale damages to Meghalaya, Assam and Nagaland last year.
Assam has been sanctioned Rs 520.466 crore while Nagaland will receive Rs 68.02 crore. This additional assistance is over and above the funds released by the Centre to the states in the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), already placed at the disposal of the states.
Meanwhile, the DoNER Minister G Kishan Reddy said that several infrastructure development projects have been taken up by the concerned ministries and departments of the central government in the Northeastern region.
A total of 4121 km of road projects have been completed by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways in the region in the last 7 years and projects of length 7545 km amounting to Rs 1,05,518 crore are ongoing, he said in reply to a question in Parliament.
“17 airports have been made operational in the Northeastern region. Development of new Greenfield Airports at Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh; Dibrugarh, Guwahati and Silchar in Assam; Imphal in Manipur; Barapani (Umroi) in Meghalaya and Agartala in Tripura are ongoing,” he added.
In addition, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) is implementing various schemes and packages, the minister said.
Under these developmental schemes and packages, 1,350 projects worth Rs 15,867.01 crore, including connectivity projects, have been sanctioned during the financial years 2014-15 to 2021-22, he added.
