Centre mulling NEC revamp

FROM A CORRESPONDENR

New Delhi, Aug 7: The Centre is contemplating an overhaul of the North Eastern Council (NEC) to meet current requirements and to address new emerging issues in the Northeast.

Official sources said that DoNER and NEC officials will meet shortly to properly reorient the NEC.

Chairing a recent meeting of senior government officials, DoNER Minister Jitendra Singh said, “Very soon,  officials of the Ministry of DoNER and NEC will sit together to prepare a roadmap for the possible reorientation and upgradation of NEC.”

Singh said that much has changed since then (when NEC was setup in early 70s), and not only expectations from the NEC have increased, but there is also an ever increasing spectrum of work undertaken by the Council.

“During the tenure of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a separate Ministry of DoNER was constituted in 2004, but it was felt that the NEC should also maintain its individual identity,” said Singh.

He said that a number of new institutions have been set up in the region in recent years, which include IIM and IIT in education sector, super-specialty hospitals in health sector and exclusive institutes like the North-Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC).

“An effort will be made to develop the NEC headquarter at Shillong as ‘Central Resource Pool’ for the entire region wherein all the diverse institutes, organizations and establishments can be linked to a common nodal point in order to bring about better coordition with expeditious progress in every area,” he said.