THERE will be a big upsurge of economic activities in the NE region during the next five years, said Deputy Chairman of the country’s Planning Commission Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia here today. Dr Ahluwalia, who inaugurated the technical sessions of the conference on the country’s Look East Policy and the challenges for sub-regional cooperation, described the region as the “quite distinctive and important part of the country” and claimed that during the next five years, connectivity of the region would also improve largely.

He said that a strategy was being incorporated in the Eleventh Plan approach with an allocation of Rs 12,793 crore from the Central Government, for development of roads in the NE region. Besides, there will be an investment varying between Rs 9,500 crore and Rs 10,000 crore, for improving rail connectivity of the region during the Eleventh Plan period. There are proposals to provide railheads to Meghalaya and Sikkim and airports to Kohima, Itanagar and Sikkim, said the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman. He apprised the gathering of thinkers, academicians, industrialists, senior officials from Delhi and North-eastern States and representatives of the NE civil societies that the Eleventh Five Year Plan would also focus on the efforts at exploiting the hydel potential of the region.

Suggesting that there should be a Guwahati-based regional airline, he said that it was very important for the development of the region, as, national airlines with their big airbuses were not ‘ideally suitable’ for operating inside the region. There should be flexibility to allow other airlines also to enter the sector, he said.

Inadequate investment during the pre-Independence era and the partition of the country placed the NE region in a disadvantageous position. At this moment, financial position of the NE States is not as strong as other parts of the country. For, they do not have the internal resource mobilisation capacity. Moreover, like the States of the other regions, these states also lack the efforts to absorb Central assistance. But the region has the resilience to emerge as the springboard of development, if proper care is taken, said Dr Ahluwalia.

The Central Government has been making very significant efforts to ensure flow of fund to NE region, he said. However, he admitted that the country’s planners and policy makers had a lot to do for the region, saying, “We have not done much as we should for the NE region.” Presenting a picture of the transfer of funds to the region, he said that it was almost four times larger than the other regions of the country. While the per capita transfer of funds to the region is Rs 2,575, the average for other regions in this case is only Rs 684 per person, he said.

From 9.1 per cent in 2002 the Central assistance to the region was augmented to 10.6 per cent in 2006 in terms of GDP ratio. However, in case of the other States of the same special category standing, the rise in the Central assistance from 9.3 per cent was restricted within 9.65 per cent during the said period. And, in the case of the non-special category States, the share of Central assistance declined from 2.4 per cent to 1.9 per cent during the period, said Ahluwalia. From all sources, an amount of Rs 80,943 crore was spent on the NE region during the Tenth Five Year Plan, he said.

The picture concerning utilisation of the Central assistance in the NE region is, however, not encouraging. The Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources has a total accrual of Rs 10,400 crore and so far, its utilisation is limited to Rs 4,660 crore, he said, adding, there should also be attempts at looking at the returns from such investments.

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