SIKKIM will soon join the North Eastern Council (NEC) making it an eight-member body under the Department of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) even as the Centre vowed that it will not allow insurgents to hamper the ongoing projects in the area for which it had recently disbursed Rs 200 crore.

"Sikkim will be the eight member-State of the NEC when the Lok Sabha clears the NEC (Amendment) Bill. The Rajya Sabha has passed the Bill which was introduced in 1998," DONER secretary Atul Sinha said.

Admitting that violence in the region did slow down the development work, Mr. Sinha, however assured that ongoing projects will not be shut down due to insurgency. "Insurgents know that they will also suffer if they hamper the progress of drinking water projects and the like," he said.

Claiming that DONER has already spent Rs 199.96 crore of the Rs 200 crore given by the Centre for the completion of ongoing projects, Sinha said the website wwe.northeast.nic.in has all the details of the sanctioned works.

"For greater transparency, we have included the names of the projects, amount sanctioned for each of them, the location and even the names and addresses of the contractors," he said. All the 457 Community Information Centres in the North East were given directions to disseminate information regarding the projects, the secretary said. In a major step linking the capitals of the North-East states with the rest of the country, the NEC will soon sanction Rs 35 crore to Alliance Air to operate four 50-seater aircrafts from the region, Mr. Sinha said.

Meanwhile, Jayawanti Mehta, Minister of State for Power in a written statement to a question by Rajya Sabha member of Parliament from Assam Dwijendra Nath Sharmah, stated that the total investment in power sector during the Ninth Plan for the State of Assam was Rs 816.17 crore of which Rs 458.93 crore has been made by the Assam State Electricity Board and Rs 357.24 crore by NEEPCO.

Regarding the details of target fixed for the State during the Tenth Plan, the Minister stated that the investment target recommended by Planning Commission Working Group for the Power Sector is Rs 859.07 crore for ASEB and Rs 119.16 crore for NEEPCO with the total investment of Rs 978.25 crore.