All Northeast states miss DoNER’s Q1 fund expenditure targets

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: It is a matter of consternation that all Northeast states, including Assam, missed the expenditure targets of the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme—Other Than Road Infrastructure (NESIDS-OTRI) under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) for the first quarter (Q1) of the current financial year (2025-26).

The expenditure plans submitted by the NE states in Q1 of this financial year amounted to Rs 574.6 crore under the NESIDS-OTRI, but, as of June 2, 2025, the total expenditure incurred came to only Rs 140.19 crore. This statistic came to light following a recent meeting of the Empowered Inter-Ministerial Committee (EIMC) of NESIDS-OTRI.

According to an office memorandum (O.M.) of DoNER dated June 18, 2025, Assam submitted an expenditure plan of Rs 206.9 crore for the first three months (Q1) of the current FY. However, an amount of only Rs 53.03 crore was spent under the NESIDS-OTRI until June 2, 2025.

Arunachal Pradesh had submitted an expenditure plan of Rs 83.73 crore, but only Rs 7.23 crore was spent. Similarly, Manipur had submitted an expenditure plan of Rs 77.4 crore for Q1, but the expense incurred came to just Rs 15.85 crore. Meghalaya had also submitted an expenditure plan of Rs 42.18 crore but could spend only Rs 16.58 crore. Mizoram, similarly, envisaged spending Rs 39.66 crore but could spend only Rs 14.86 crore. Meanwhile, Nagaland had targeted an expenditure of Rs 26.68 crore but missed the target, spending only Rs 9.09 crore. The same fate emerged for Tripura, as the state had planned to spend Rs 56.72 crore but managed to spend only Rs 23.55 crore for the first quarter of the year.

As for Sikkim, the state could not spend a single rupee of the Rs 43.33 crore expenditure plan submitted for the same period.

The O.M. also stated that the actual expenditure made by the state governments under NESIDS (OTRI) against the expenditure plan shared by them for the period from April 2025 to June 2025 is on the lower side in respect of all the NER states. The state governments were requested to expedite the progress of ongoing works and submit the demand requests to the ministry through the Poorvottar Vikas Setu portal.

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