The Government has approved a central sector scheme of North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) with 100% central funding restructuring the block grant of 90:10 under the scheme of Non-lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR).  While framing the guidelines for NESIDS, the provisions of guidelines of NLCPR, as revised in 2016, were retained which, inter-alia, includes the constitution of State Level Empowered Committee (SLEC) under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary of the States; delegation of power of vetting of projects to the states through SLEC; strengthening of project portal for online submission of documents; emphasizing completion of ongoing projects by releasing more funds against them; putting a cap on value of retention of new project; provisioning of release of only token amount of Rs. 10 lakh at the time of sanction of the project with balance to be released on receipt of award of work; and reducing the number of installments for release of funds from three to two.  This resulted in faster completion of projects and reduction in amount of pending utilization certificates  from Rs. 1158.95 crore as on 01-04-2016 to Rs. 247.94 crore as on 31-12-2018, besides decrease in time taken for vetting of DPRs and awarding of work.

This information was provided by the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh in written reply to a question in  Rajya Sabha today.

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