NEW DELHI, April 24 ? Although the highest allocation from the Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Fund went to Assam, the State has slipped in utilisation, even as Tripura emerged at the top in terms of utilisation of funds sanctioned out of the pool. For the fund starved north-eastern States, there is encouraging news in store as with the activation of the Central Pool of Resources the allocation is expected to go up. Allocation for the last four years has recorded a quantum jump to Rs 1,346.72 crore. Among the north eastern States, the highest allocation of Rs 293.16 crore has flowed to Assam followed by Tripura which was released Rs 215.29 crore. The lowest allocation of Rs 66.81 crore has gone to Meghalaya because of the dearth of project proposals and submission of utilisation certificates.
Addressing a press conference here today, secretary to the Department for Development of North Eastern Region (DONER), Dr P D Shenoy said that the Non-Lapsable Pool of Central Resources have been streamlined with more stress on monitoring and inspection. The DONER had stipulated that State Government submits feedback regarding progress of the projects financed under the Central Pool in the form of utilisation certificates and quarterly progress reports in prescribed form. The release of next instalment of funds is made strictly on satisfactory performance of the project, he asserted. In addition, the DONER proposes to engage a team of engineers from outside the North East to inspect projects financed from the Non-Lapsable Pool, he said.
The DONER is also currently engaged in an exercise of evaluating the flow of funds from the various Central Ministries to the Non-Lapsable Pool and a series of meetings were convened with the officials of the various ministries for the purpose, Dr Shenoy claimed. The Non-Lapsable Pool of Resources is created from out of the unspent amount of 10 per cent of the Budgetary allocation of the Central Ministries to support development projects and schemes for the North East. The criteria for financing projects out of the Pool is for Projects aimed at reducing the existing basic minimum services, infrastructure gaps. Specific projects related to physical and social infrastructure are also funded.
Meanwhile, Dr Shenoy said the committee constituted to administer the Pool now meets every month to clear project proposals submitted by the States. The committee headed by Dr Shenoy includes representatives of all the Central Ministries. Dr Shenoy said releases from the Central Pool for the various projects in the North East aggregated to Rs. 491.81 crore during 2001-2002 which was the largest in any single year in the last four years. Though the largest flow of funds has gone to Assam, the maximum utilisation of resources was by Tripura, he said in reply to a question. Dr Shenoy also did not rule out the possibility of misutilisation of funds though he said given the monitoring mechanism put in place possibility of misutilisation was low. In Assam, a total number 34 projects have been financed from the Pool including the Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra and various flood control schemes. In the last financial year projects worth Rs 89.18 crore were sanctioned from the Pool.