THE North Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEDFi) has made significant contribution to the North-Eastern states by sanctioning projects to a new high of Rs 138.70 crore with disbursements to the tune of Rs 94.20 crore during the financial year 2006-07, said L Haokip, Manager, NEDFi Imphal Branch.

Haokip informed that NEDFi has made considerable efforts to encourage entrepreneurs in setting up new viable industries and a total of 300 new projects were sanctioned which constituted 26 per cent of all sanctions up to the beginning of the year. “The corporation sanctioned more than one project every working days of the year,” the statement said adding that NEDFi’s credit disbursement in the region has covered a wide spectrum of sectors which included power, steel, cement, hospitality and tourism, hospital and nursing homes, milk processing, etc.

Since its inception, the Corporation has helped in creating over 50,000 jobs, serviced 3,745 self help groups (SHGs) and extended minor-credit facilities to 38,861 beneficiaries with a sizeable bias towards the weaker sections of the society such as the schedule castes and schedule tribes. Out of the beneficiaries, 56 per cent were women, the officer said.

Even as the book size was increased, the corporation followed prudential norms through the credit process and adopted conservative norms in accounting for them to ensure the balance sheet remained healthy. Net NPA was brought down and at the year-end it constituted 4.93 per cent as against 6.81 per cent a year ago.

“Increased business and larger book size contributed to improvement of net profit at Rs 15.60 crore, about 10.50 per cent higher than the previous year pushing the net worth of the company to 255.25, a growth of 13 per cent in the last two years,” the statement of the corporation said.

All metre gauge rail lines in the north-eastern region would be converted to broad gauge, railway officials said here today. Of the total 2,578 km railway line in the region, 1238.73 km is broad gauge. Of this, 1,227.6 km is in Assam and the rest is in Nagaland. Since 1992, about 1,079 km of gauge conversion was completed in the region and the Northeast Frontier Railway has laid 193 new lines within this period in the region, they said.

|  Headlines  |  Editorial   | Cover story  |
|  Travel Column   |   News Briefs  |
| OT Main Page | Nena  Home Page  |