North Eastern Council (NEC) was set up following the enactment of NEC Act, 1971 as an advisory body for accelerating the development of North Eastern Region. As per NEC Amendment Act, 2002, the NEC was mandated to function as a Regional Planning Body. Since 2004, NEC is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region. Sufficient administrative and financial autonomy has been provided to NEC. Within the overall budgetary allocation provided by the Planning Commission, the Annual Plan prepared by the Council is approved by the Council itself. Secretary, NEC has power to sanction individual projects costing upto Rs. 15 crore. Projects costing beyond Rs. 15 crore are appraised and approved as per the financial rules of the Government of India.
NEC has been able to achieve its objectives in regard to planning, economic and social development of the North Eastern Region. Major achievements of NEC include establishment of regional organizations like North Eastern Electric Power Corporation, North Eastern Police Academy, Regional Institute of Paramedical and Nursing, North Eastern Regional Institute of Land and Water Management etc; construction of road (9800 kilometers) , 77 bridges including Tejpur road bridge on river Brahmaputra, 9 Inter State Bus Terminus, 4 Inter State Truck Terminus; viability gap funding to Alliance Air and funding of 10 Airports development project through Airport Authority for improvement of air-connectivity; installation of 694.50 MW of hydro power generation, 64.5 MW of thermal power generation (accounting 30% of the present installed capacity of NER); 57 power system improvement schemes; implementation of North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP), phase –I and phase –II in two districts each of Meghalaya, Assam and Manipur; launch of NERCORMP-III project to cover three districts of Arunachal Pradesh and two uncovered districts of Manipur.
NEC has already been restructured under the NEC (Amendment) Act, 2002 from 26th June, 2003. Under this amendment, NEC has been mandated to function as Regional Planning Body and Sikkim was included as 8th constituent state under the Council. This amendment provided for NEC to give priority to schemes/ projects benefiting two or more States, except in the case of Sikkim. The Members of the Council include Governors and Chief Ministers of the North Eastern States and three Members nominated by the President of India. The Minister of DoNER is the ex-officio Chairman of NEC from March, 2005.
****
