Rural development ministers of the North-East region recently demanded that the Centre should adopt a uniform ratio of 80:20 in sharing of funds for rural development programmes between the Centre and the States.

A one-day meeting of the North-Eastern Rural Development ministers held in Aizawl also demanded that a more realistic definition of poverty in the States of the region should be adopted in view of the peculiar circumstances prevailing in these States.

The ministers further demanded allocation of funds under the employment assurance scheme (EAS) on need base and not on the basis of rural population and its implementation as a "demand-driven schemes".

They urged the need of strengthening financial institutions in an innovative manner to evolve alternate delivery mechanism for micro credit, to waive clause 2.6 of the EAS guidelines regarding release of 20 per cent of funds for election and empowerment of Panchayati Raj institutions and to press the Centre to appoint a full-time senior officer in the Ministry of Rural Development exclusively for the North-East.