Budget: Northeast gets a pittance

NEW DELHI, February 28: The Union Budget has gone the Railway Budget's way with the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha also turning a cold eye towards the north eastern region. The general Budget 2001-02 may prove to be just as hard hitting on the region as Mamata Banerjee's Budget, as barring a few concessions here and there, Sinha took no extra care to bail out the financially-starved Northeastern States from the ongoing financial mess. The only redeeming feature was that almost all central ministries have separately earmarked 10 per cent of their budgetary allocations for the region, a rule initiated by the then United Front Prime Minister, H D Deve Gowda. On the brighter side, the Union Finance Minister has allocated Rs 38 crore for the Technology Mission for the integrated development of horticulture that was launched last year in the Northeast. 'I am happy to inform the House that I have provided Rs 38 crore for the Technology Mission, announced by me last year,' he announced. "There is a significant potential for improving crop productivity in the eastern and Northeastern region through crop diversification and adoption of improved technologies. A sum of Rs 61 crore has been provided for the centrally-sponsored scheme on 'on-farm water management' for increasing crop production in Eastern India," he said. Under the Education head, Sinha has hiked up the financial allocation for Guwahati IIT to ensure its early completion. The other gainer from the Budget would be the tea industry in the region as, Sinha announced two major sops to benefit the industry. 'For promoting the industry that provides the cup that cheers, I propose to increase the development allowance available for tea from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. This additional allowance will be used only for re-plantation, rejuvenation and modernisation of tea plantation and processing facilities,' he asserted. The Assam Chief Minister would also sulk at the allocation of Rs 25 crore grant-in-aid for flood control work in Brahmaputra and Barak valley, as it did not mark any increase over the last year's allocation. However, the Brahmaputra Board's allocation for undertaking flood control works in Brahmaputra Valley has witnessed a marginal increase to Rs 20 crore from Rs 17.40 crore given last financial year. With this the total allocation as grant-in-aid for flood control work in Brahmaputra Valley has been increased to Rs 45 crore from 42.40 crore. The allocation for the proposed Pagladiya dam project has been slashed to Rs 2.85 crore from Rs 4.29 crore sanctioned in the last Budget. The Northeastern Council (NEC) budgetary allocation has been increased to Rs 450 crore from Rs 415 crore. The outlay for the 2001-02 financial year is for central assistance covering agriculture and allied sectors, water, power development, industries and mining, transport and communications, manpower development and social and community services. A major part of the outlay is for construction of inter-state roads by the state PWDs. The budgetary allocation for the Indo-Bangladesh border works has been hiked to Rs 100 crore from Rs 87.51 crore. The project would cover erection of barbed wire fencing and construction of roads.