All schemes funded by the North Eastern Council (NEC) will have to be completed by 2020 and the respective state governments may have to take the responsibility of completing those which are delayed by over three years, its secretary Ram Muivah said today.
"NEC schemes as per Expenditure Finance Committee(EFC) are co-terminus with the 14th Finance Commission. So all NEC schemes have to be completed in all respect by March 2020," he told reporters here.
The DoNER ministry has taken the decision not to continue projects which are delayed by over three years, he said at the sidelines of his meeting with the health minister Al Hek here on Monday
NEC, the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the north eastern region, has been asked not to take up any project which it cannot complete within the next two years, Muivah said.
"If this is not done then it will be the responsibility of the state governments to complete the projects with their own funds," he said adding that every state has more than 10 such schemes.
He said that Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur get 12 per cent each from the NEC budget. Releasing of the funds depend on timely submission of detailed project report and utilization certificates.
"Assam and Tripura receive a little less fund because they were asked to submit only big projects. So these had to go to Standing Finance Committee (SFC), which holds its meeting only once or twice a year. By following such advice they lose out," he said.
On NECs budget, Muivah said for the next financial year for the normal NEC programme it is Rs 885 crore, while Rs 250 crore was given by the Centre for special road projects under the North Eastern Road Development Sector (NERDS).
"The Budget for the next financial year has come down slightly for normal programme against Rs 925 crore of last year but for special road programme we got Rs 100 crore more, as last year it was 150 crore," he added.
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