171 Central Projects behind schedule by more than 8 yrs
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, January 18 2015: Apart from the fact that none of the development project taken up in Manipur under Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) and North Eastern Council (NEC) have been able to complete in time, as many as 171 Centrally funded projects have been behind schedule by more than 8 years in the State, thus raising alarm in the Ministry of Development of North East Region (DoNER) .

According to a highly placed source, even though the Central Government has been deducting and reserving 10 percent of the total budget allocation from every ministry/department for utilizing in works related to development of the Northeastern States, the performance of Manipur has been rather disappointing all along.

The completion of in all 95 projects worth around Rs 903.73 crores under NLCPR and another 76 NEC-funded projects worth around Rs 634.98 crores in Manipur have been behind schedule by more than 8 years now.

These NLCPR-funded projects have completed only 85.3 percent so far while 35.5 percent for the NEC projects.

Failure of submitting the utilization certificates of the funds released in time is also likely to become the cause for derailment of these projects, especially that of the NEC-funded ones, thereby, retarding the growth process of the State.

The source further informed that following the protracted delayed in completion of these NLCPR and NEC-funded projects; the Ministry of DoNER has made known its displeasure to the Government of Manipur in no uncertain term.

Taking serious note of the matter and to ensure completion of the delayed projects at the earliest possible, and the Ministry has instructed the Government of Manipur to submit the monthly progress review reports regularly.

In a letter dispatched to Chief Secretary PC Lawmkunga recently, Secretary of Ministry of DoNER R Vijaykumar made it clear that even after several rounds of meetings, there has been continued complaints over failure of executing the developmental projects for improving infrastructure and road connectivity in Manipur.

Against this backdrop, another reliable source disclosed, Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh is all set to review the progress of the works being taken up under Tribal Areas Inclusive Growth Infrastructure Project Phase-I and Phase II as well as the construction of district sports complexes under SPA/NLCPR on January 22 afternoon.

In this connection, the State Government has given instruction to the Project Director of MDS and Managing Director of Manipur Tribal Development Council for coming up with power point presentation on these projects detailing the reasons for the delay, how much more time would be required for their completion, etc, during the review meeting which is to be held in the Cabinet room of the Chief Minister's Secretariat.

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