By Patricia Mukhim
The North Eastern Council (NEC) was created in 1971 to provide a blueprint for the development of the remote region. It was meant to provide a comprehensive plan for the creation of infrastructure and for inter-regional road and air linkages. It was also meant to boost development in areas where the seven states are incapable of meeting the challenges.
Perhaps those who envisaged this institution felt it would be a sort of extension of the North Block secretariat in the North-east. More so since the council was, until a very short time ago, under the Union home ministry.
It is also true that at the time of its inception, the idea of an NEC was mainly security-centric since the region has been a boiling pot of rebellions. It was only much later that the powers that be in Delhi realised that development backlogs were actually creating another kind of discontent.
In its wisdom, the NDA government created a department for the Development of the North Eastern Region, which was later upgraded to a full-fledged ministry.Doner was the result of a study conducted by the Shukla Commission headed by SP Shukla, which also had on board some familiar North-eastern hands such as BG Verghese and others.
The commission toured the region extensively and studied the imbalances that kept the North-east at subsistence level. This was in the early ’90s. It was around that time that then Prime Minister HD Deva Gowda spent five days in the region, visiting each state and educating himself of the ground realities. He is, till date, the only Prime Minister to have done so, bless his soul. Others are noted for their flying visits. Dr Manmohan Singh, despite claiming domicile in Assam to get elected to the Rajya Sabha, has hardly spent even a day in Guwahati, although that is his official residential address.
However, the creation of Doner without envisaging an appropriate role for the NEC is perhaps the cause of all problems today. It is difficult to clearly distinguish between the roles of Doner and the NEC. Somehow the latter seems to have been subsumed by the former, although that should not be the case.
But what is turning the NEC into a beleaguered institution is its governing body, which is no less than a geriatric ward packed with retired bureaucrats for decades. There is much input by way of injection of resources to sustain the lifestyles and travel packages of these elderly citizens who should, if they really care for the region, make way for fresh blood to give the NEC a new lease of life and a new sense of direction. But in this country people hang on to their positions long after they have crossed superannuation age, as if they are the sole repositories of all the wisdom in the world.
Yes, on the NEC board are retired bureaucrats, one of whom is said to be very close to Race Course Road, and they have virtually enjoyed the perks of office for far too long. They have not shown any initiative to lift the region from the morass it finds itself in. It is true that NEC funds some road projects here and there but these funds are not adequate to make a dent in the region. According to Vision 2020, which was carefully crafted after taking the views of the people of the region, the North-east needs a few hundred thousand crores of rupees to catch up with the rest of India. Indeed, the North-east requires massive infrastructural build-up for which the NEC could have been the supporting arm but this has not happened.
Doner has further undermined the role of the NEC, whose budget is now greatly reduced since the funds from the Non-Lapsable Pool of Central Resources are administered by Doner. But the truth is also that the NEC under some past secretaries had acted in a very arbitrary manner and doled out funds right, left and centre to undeserving individuals and organisations. Some years ago the NEC funded a Shillong-based environmental NGO several crores of rupees but this amount was allegedly misutilised. The case is now with the CBI. At a recent meeting of NGOs in Shillong to discuss the development backlog of the region and prepare a draft for the consideration of the Planning Commission to be included in its 12th Plan, the common grouse expressed by all representatives of the eight states was that the NEC had failed to live up to its role.
There is a feeling today that the council should revisit its goals and redesign its module to become a planning commission for the North-east. As a regional planning body, the NEC can be a sort of liaison between different departments of the Central government and the North-eastern states. Many of the states do not have the expertise to prepare Detailed Project Reports, as a result of which their projects are turned down on various grounds. By the time the states come up with another DPR, there is cost escalation and a host of other problems. Hence, the NEC could become the lever for pushing growth in the region since Doner has turned into a funding agency for projects and the NEC has metamorphosed into a sort of back office for Doner. Also, the fact that both the NEC and Doner continue to fund projects of different ranges results in overlapping.
Most schemes are not even monitored. Many have taken more than the gestation period allowed for their completion. All this only creates a black hole into which development funds are pushed in without ever really producing anything to benefit the common people.
The region faces several cross-cutting challenges. One of the monumental challenges of our times across the states is waste/garbage management. While we can think of waste processing units in every state, the project will not be viable if it is to cater to only one state. Hence, a common project or programme for waste management for two or three contiguous states makes better sense. Even for tourism, the NEC could become the key policy-maker and the conNECting link in this region. In fact, the council should become more of a think tank that shapes policy for the North-east and enables the Centre to grasp the complexities of the region.
The NEC could also be a link between the different Central ministries with their offices in the region. Often these ministries do their own planning and implementation and there is no convergence at all. The mantra today is convergence because that also means pooling resources and adding greater synergy as well as accountability. The Union environment and forests ministry, for instance, has its back office in Shillong but we hardly get to hear of a joint action by the two. This is just one example. There are many other Centrally administered extension centres, such as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, which all function independently. All these need to come together under one head in the North-east and tell us what they are doing and what their achievements in different areas are. This is the only way to hold the government and its different arms accountable. Otherwise these establishments will function like sarkari offices that only cater to employees’ needs without assessing their output.
There will, of course, be resistance to any kind of change but we live in a world where redundancy is real. Those who cannot move with the times become redundant. It is only a matter of time before governments will also have to prune themselves and link an employee’s tenure and pay to his/her performance. I am sure the NEC, too, has a lot of peripheral staff whose role has diminished with the advent of Doner. These would be put to better use if we bring in the convergence factor.
For now, the NEC needs to shed its top-heavy load of board members who are well past their shelf life. Let people from the region with a grasp of the real issues guide the council as it takes on a transformative role.
The writer is editor, The Shillong Times, and can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail com
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