Development mantra

Once again, the North-Eastern Chief Ministers have demanded more funds from the Centre. At the recently concluded NEC meeting in Delhi, all the Chief Ministers pleaded for more funds from the Centre citing one reason or another.

Beyond doubt funds are pre-requisite for development. Many important development projects in the region could not be taken up because of lack of funds. For example, mighty Brahmaputra still continues to destroy property worth crore of rupees as funds could not be arranged to tame the river. That is why even after five decades of Independence, Brahmaputra remains as the main cause for the region’s backwardness. But even then the unanimous demand of the North-Eastern Chief Ministers is little perplexing. On one hand they are asking for more funds, while they are yet to show any kind of judiciousness in using whatever funds are available to them.

Every North-Eastern state today is facing acute financial crisis. Funds meant for development getting diverted to pay either the salaries of the government employees or to meet other administrative expenses. Despite repeated warnings from the Central Government, the states have successfully resisted every attempt to cap government employment and unnecessary and unproductive expenditures because of political consideration. Moreover, the states have never made any attempt to generate revenues of their own. All they have done is to borrow as much as possible from all available quarters.

Unlike other states, North-East gets development funds on 90 per cent grant and 10 per cent loan basis by virtue of being special category states. Besides, the states continue to get special funds from time to time. Mizoram got peace bonus. Nagaland also received Rs. 365 crore as special assistance from the Centre. Like Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab, Assam also gets full reimbursement for the expenditure incurred to control terrorism. It is being alleged that in Manipur it is the underground forces which decides which project to take up and which contractor will be preferred and in the process pocketing huge amount of money meant for development in the pockets and in the process development suffers. Previous NDA Government had once stopped releasing funds to Manipur on these charges.

No one will oppose the move in the Centre decides to allot more funds to the North-Eastern states. But at the same time it should also keep a watch on how the funds meant for development are being spent. The Centre should ensure that funds meant for development should not be diverted under any circumstances. Only that can ensure economic development of this backward region.

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