NEW DELHI, Nov 28: The Centre has sanctioned a total of Rs 3,417.68 crore for 90 infrastructure projects across the Northeast states under the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) over the past three financial years (2021-22 to 2023-24) and the current fiscal year (2024-25), the Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (MDoNER) announced.
Sukanta Majumdar, minister of state, MDoNER said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the projects sanctioned under NESIDS are executed by the State Governments of North Eastern Region (NER) and the primary responsibility of monitoring of these projects lies with the concerned State Governments. The MDoNER also closely monitors the progress of the ongoing projects under NESIDS is at different levels.
The officials of Ministry of DoNER and NEC carry out inspection of the select projects on a regular basis. The Field Technical Support Units (FTSU) have been set upby the Ministry in all the 08 NE States, who regularly interact with project Implementing Agencies and maintain and update the database of projects on Gati Shakti Portal of MDoNER, and also carry out inspections of the ongoing projects.
In order to further strengthen the monitoring mechanism of the ongoing projects under the various schemes of MDoNER inter-alia including NESIDS, the SOP for engagement of the Project Quality Monitors/Third Party Technical Inspection (PQM/TPTI) Units has been issued in February 2024.The projects costing up to Rs 20 crore are being inspected by the PQMs and for bigger infrastructure projects, with project size more than Rs 20 crore, the government engineering colleges in NER have been empanelled as Third Party Technical Inspection (TPTI) agencies for monitoring of these projects..
The NESIDS scheme of Ministry of DoNER has two components: NESIDS(Roads) and NESIDS Other Than Roads Infrastructure (OTRI). Under NESIDS (Roads), projects leading to the creation of physical assets in roads/bridges and auxiliary infrastructure only are considered for sanction. Under NESIDS (OTRI), projects leading to the creation of infrastructure for Primary and Secondary Health care, Primary and Secondary Education, water supply, solid waste management, Industrial development, Civil aviation, sports, telecom etc, with project size between Rs 5 crore to Rs 50 crore, are considered for sanction.
A significant portion of the funding has been allocated to road projects, with Assam receiving the highest share of Rs 1,392 crore, followed by Arunachal Pradesh with Rs 603.91 crore.
All the North Eastern States are eligible for sanction of projects to the extent of their normative allocations as applicable under NESIDS.
