New Delhi, Feb 27: Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (I/C), Prime Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space Dr Jitendra Singh chaired a review meeting of the activities of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), here today.
The Secretary (DoNER), Dr Inder Jit Singh and senior officers of Ministry of DoNER and North Eastern Council (NEC) were present during the meeting, where all the agenda items were taken up for review.
At the outset, the Minister expressed happiness on being informed that for the first time in many years, nearly 93 percent budget of the Ministry of DoNER has been spent for the current financial year till date and he asked the officials to achieve 100 percent target till the end of this fiscal. Earlier, about 75 to 80 percent of the budget used to get spent for the Ministry in whole year.
Dr Singh asked the Ministry officials to sign a MoU at the earliest with the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for opening of new bamboo clusters and technology centres especially in Jammu/Samba/Kathua region. The MoU will provide technical support and help in capacity building of farmers. He said, the region has great potential for Bamboo Entrepreneurship.
The Minister was informed that the construction work for a new hostel for students of North-East in JNU is going on in full swing. The project undertaken by NEC under the Ministry of DoNER will be of great help to the students of the North-Eastern Region, he added. Similarly, for the first ever North East Convention Centre at Dwarka at a prime land, work is going to start shortly.
It was brought to the notice of the Minister that against a total package amount of Rs.586.20 crore under Social and Infrastructure Development Fund (SIDF), projects worth of Rs.587.17 crore has been sanctioned by Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.
Out of this, an amount of Rs.504.10 crore has already been released and balance amount will be released on receipt of physical & financial reports from the concerned State Governments.
