Though the council is not categorically sure from where the money would come, Falguni Rajkumar, secretary of NEC, said that the council would explore every means, from roping in private investment to convincing the central ministries to increase their allocation for the region, to achieve and sustain the proposed growth rate.
Though he admitted that all the money that has been pumped into North-East for all these years has been public money, with private investment being "very less", he said, NEC would facilitate private investment in the coming years.
Rajkumar said that tourism and horticulture has been identified as the most prospective sectors.
"What we want in North-East is less capital intensive and more labour intensive investment. Thus we have identified tourism and horticulture as two prospective sectors", he said.
He added: "We can't think of traditional ways of changing North-East. This must be made clear to New Delhi also. We have to plan things which are suited to this region".
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Referring to the 'Vision 2020' document, Rajkumar said: "Now we know the height we have to climb, the distance we have to travel. The need is to implement accordingly."
As compared to present growth rate of 7.5 per cent, Rajkumar said that the region has to grow at a rate of 12.95 per cent annually to catch up with the rest of the country by 2020.
NEC has come up with a proposal to act as a collective planning body for utilisation of funds of central ministries in the region.
Rajkumar said that it will forward the proposal to the cabinet by next month for entrusting it as the body to collectively plan the utilisation of 10 per cent gross budgetary support of all the central ministries for North-East.
It is mandatory for all the central ministries to spend 10 per cent of its budget in North-East, and if the money was unspent, it went into Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR).
"Now each central ministry plans on its won and spends the money. There is no convergence. What we want is to channelise this flow of fund collectively and bring convergence," Rajkumar said.
The 'Vision 2020' document for North-East would be released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 2 in New Delhi.
NEC is the apex body for development of North-Eastern.