NEW DELHI, July 18: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today cleared additional funds for development of Railways and Power projects in Northeast and asked the Planning Commission to convene a meeting of Chief Ministers of Northeastern States to improve inter-state coordination for speedy completion of the Infrastructure projects.
The Prime Minster who chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of infrastructure development in the North-eastern region, also directed setting up of an Empowered Committee to monitor progress on all infrastructure projects in the region.
The meeting was attended by the Ministers for Finance, Civil Aviation, Railways, Road Transport and Highways, Telecom, Power, DONER and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
The review covered railway, road, airport, power, and telecom projects in the region and focussed on speeding up implementation of the ongoing projects and also fill-in gaps to ensure full physical and electronic connectivity to and in the region, a spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said a special section was for the first time included in the Eleventh Plan document on the North-eastern Region which had accelerated the growth process in NE States.
This section will continue in the Twelfth Plan.
He said the eight states of the region grew at 9.95 per cent rate during the Eleventh plan period, well above the national average of eight per cent.
It was agreed at the meeting that the Finance Ministry would provide an additional Rs 400 crore to complete three critical rail projects before March 2014.
These are the Harmati-Naharlagun project to provide the first rail connectivity to Arunachal Pradeshm, the Dudhnoi-Mehdipathar project to connect Meghalaya and the Rangapura-North Lakhimpur gauge conversion project.
The Railway Ministry said the first trial runs would begin on these lines in January 2014.
(UNI)
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