Of the 1,689 sanctioned projects of the MDoNER, 1333 have been completed by the states

Guwahati: The Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region (MDoNER) and the North Eastern Council (NEC) have approved 1689 projects worth Rs. 17,748.54 crores in the northeastern states between the fiscals 2004-05 and 2014-15. Of these, 1,333 projects have been completed at an expense of Rs. 12,763.49 crores by the eight states, while the remaining 356 are undergoing construction. The cost of the ongoing projects is estimated at Rs. 4,985.05 crores

In a statement released by the Ministry of Development of North-East Region today, it has been reported that during the aforementioned period, Assam has been sanctioned 483 infrastructure development projects worth Rs. 4,673.63, of which 306 projects have been completed and 177 projects with expense worth Rs. 1,960.08 crores are presently ongoing.

Arunachal Pradesh had completed 191 of the 236 sanctioned projects under various schemes and policies of the departments. Of the sanctioned Rs. 2,909.05 crores, Rs. 2,171.46 has already been spent.

The State-wise status of the projects sanctioned under the Schemes of MDoNER and NEC during the financial years 2004-05 to 2013-14 is as under:-

Several infrastructure development projects, including connectivity projects, have been taken up by the concerned Ministries and Departments of the Central Government in the North Eastern Region (NER) in improving rail, road, and waterway connectivity, as well as power and telecom connectivity in the region.

As of April 1, 2022, 19 projects spread across 1,909 km length (except Agartala-Sabroom new line project and Lumding-Hojai Doubling project) are under different stages of planning, approval, or execution. The total sanction amount for the projects is Rs. 77,930 crores. Of this 409 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs.30,312 crore was incurred up to March 2022.

During the period from 2004 to 2013, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has undertaken 394 projects of a total road length of 5595.14 km costing Rs. 23038.58 crores for connectivity and development in the North Eastern states. Out of these, 337 projects of total road length 4232.55 km costing Rs. 13154.86 crores have been completed, and 57 projects of a total length of 1362.60 km costing Rs. 10073.64 crores are reportedly ongoing.

During the period 2004-2013, 3 projects on the Brahmaputra River (National Waterway-2) in Assam and 2 projects of Indo-Bangladesh Protocol on transit and trade were undertaken for connectivity to the region.

As per the statement, the Ministry of Power has undertaken Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) projects through Regulated Tariff Mechanism (RTM) and Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB) mode in the NE states. During the period from 2004-2013, 3 projects costing Rs. 11178.26 crore were undertaken by the POWERGLIDE under RTM and 1 project under the scheme for enabling import of NER/ER surplus by NR through TBCB mode.

For Telecom connectivity, the BharatNet project has been implemented in a phased manner to provide broadband connectivity through an optimal mix of media (Optical Fibre Cable /Radio/Satellite) to all Gram Panchayats (GPs) of the country, including NER. As of July 4, 2022, a total of 5804 GPs have been made service ready in the NE states. Additionally, for providing broadband connectivity to rural and remote areas, 15,313 broadband connections and 270 kiosks were set up in the region until January 31, 2015, under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

In addition, MDoNER had also implemented various schemes/packages viz. Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) Scheme, Special Packages of Assam for Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), Schemes of North Eastern Council (NEC), for the development of the North Eastern Region.