MINISTRY OF DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH EASTERN REGION

• It is being supported by Word Bank.
• The project will have three-pronged approach to livelihood strengthening for achieving sustainable development. These are: Social empowerment, Economic empowerment, Partnership and linkages.
• The specific project objectives are-

o Create sustainable community institutions around women Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Youth Groups of men and women (YG) and Community Development Groups (CDG). Recently, the project has released a Community Investment Fund (CIF) for SHGs.
o Build capacity of community institutions for self governance, bottom up planning, democratic functioning with transparency and accountability.
o Increase economic and livelihood opportunities
o Develop partnership of community institutions for natural resource management, microfinance, market linkages, and sectoral economic services.

• It covers two districts each in Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and 5 districts in Tripura.

• It is Central Sector Scheme with 100 % funding from the Central Government. The aim is to fill up the gaps in creation of infrastructure in specified sectors till March, 2020.
• It will broadly cover creation of infrastructure under following sectors;

o Physical infrastructure relating to water supply, power, connectivity and specially the projects promoting tourism.
o Infrastructure of social sectors of education and health.

• The funds under the scheme, will be distributed among North Eastern States on the basis of well-defined criteria on certain parameters e.g. Area, Population, Human Development Index, Road density.
• The NESIDS will be over and above the existing schemes of Government of India and State Governments of the NE Region. Only those projects would be considered for funding under the scheme which are not supported under any other scheme of Central or State Government.

• It is an accrual of the unspent balance of the mandatory 10 % budgetary allocation for the north-eastern region of the Ministry/Department. It was created in 1997-98 with a funding pattern of 90:10 to-

o Ensure speedy development of NER by increasing the targeted flow of budgetary resources.
o Finance social and physical infrastructure projects pertaining to subjects in the Union and concurrent list of the Constitution.

• Under the NLCPR (State) Scheme, priority projects of North Eastern States are being funded and under NLCPR-Central Scheme (implemented by North East Council), funds are provided to Central Ministries for implementing projects of national and regional importance.

• Objective is to take up rehabilitation/construction/upgradation of neglected inter-state roads (including bridges on the roads) in the North Eastern Region. Other criteria of roads to be constructed under the scheme are;

o Roads in socio-politically neglected pockets of NER;
o Roads required for security or strategic viewpoint, not covered in any other programmes;
o Roads necessary from the viewpoint of market access for agriculture produce and roads of economic importance on gap filling approach.

• The Scheme will be administered and monitored in the Ministry of DoNER through an Empowered Inter-Ministerial Committee under chairmanship of Secretary, DoNER.

• The scheme will benefit the hilly areas of Manipur, Tripura and Assam.
• It aims to minimise the gap between hill and valley district of states in terms infrastructure, quality of roads, health and education etc. with a serious research and deliberation.
• It is aimed at giving a focused attention to the lesser developed hilly areas and will be initiated on a pilot basis in the hilly district of Tamenglong in Manipur.
• Special Central Assistance is given to designated hill areas in order to supplement the efforts of the State Governments in the development of these ecologically fragile areas.

• It is a joint developmental initiative of the North Eastern Council (NEC), Ministry of DoNER and International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD).
• The project’s primary objective is to improve the livelihood options of economically vulnerable groups in a sustainable manner through the promotion of livelihood opportunities and strengthening of local institutions that relate to livelihood development.
• The current phase i.e. Phase-III of the project covered Tirap (Undivided) and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh; Churachandpur and Chandel districts of Manipur.

o It was initially operated in three states and six districts viz: Assam (Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills), Manipur (Ukhrul and Senapati) and Meghalaya (West Garo Hills and West Khasi Hills).

• Major project activities: Capacity Building of Communities and Participating Agencies, Livelihood Activities, Extension and Technology Transfer, Credit, Social Sector Activities, Village Roads and Rural Electrification, Community Based Bio-diversity Conservation, Convergence with ongoing Government schemes, and Marketing Support.

• Launched under the Digital India programme it will be coordinated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and will be implemented by various central government ministries and governments of north eastern states,
• The document identifies eight digital thrust areas -digital infrastructure, digital services, digital empowerment, promotion of electronics manufacturing, promotion of IT and IT enabled services including BPOs, digital payments, digital innovation & startups, and cyber security.

• SIDF has been created in the Public Account for North Eastern Region, especially for Arunachal Pradesh and other border areas facing special problems that cannot be tackled through normal schemes.
• It is a one-time package that covers projects, prioritized by the State Governments as per their requirement, which, inter alia, include construction of new roads and bridges, re-establishment of new sub-stations/transmission lines, construction/upgradation of hospitals, establishment of schools, water supply projects etc.

• Recently, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region announced that it will set up Bamboo Technology parks in UTs of J&K and Ladakh which is in consonance with the National Bamboo Mission (NBM).
o The Mission envisages promoting the holistic growth of the bamboo sector by adopting an area-based strategy and to increase the area under bamboo cultivation and marketing. It also seeks to increase the availability of quality planting material, setting up nurseries and strengthening marketing of bamboo products.
• Also, first ever Bamboo Industrial Park in NE was approved to be set up in Assam.
• The Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) under NEC will implement the project.

Shruti