Nagaland facing difficulty to provide state share for central schemes: Dy CM Zeliang

June 13, 2023 36 Views No Comment

DIMAPUR, JUNE 13 (MExN): Nagaland Deputy Chief Minister TR Zeliang held a meeting with the Chairman and members of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister in Kohima today and discussed issues and challenges being faced by the state while implementing Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS).

Zeliang stated that frequent change in the CSS guidelines is cauNagalandsing inordinate delay in implementing them, as the state is finding it difficult to keep up with the changes in the content of the guidelines. He also cited the examples of various roads projects which have been stalled by the change in the Central Ministry guidelines. Moreover, some of the uniform central guidelines for CSSs are not practical in hill areas, as the expenditure in plain areas and the hills are completely different, he stated. If such guidelines are strictly imposed, a state like Nagaland can never meet the requirement and will be losing out on new projects, Zeliang said.

Asserting that some policies of the Central Government are indirectly “discriminating the smaller states like Nagaland,” the Deputy CM sought the intervention of the Economic Advisory Council in streamlining such policies.

He also said that the State’s own resource base is very limited and the development outlay for the current year is Rs 820 Crore with an increase of Rs 45 Crore over the last financial year. Out of this, Rs 250 Crore has been earmarked for the state matching share for CSS to ensure the releases of funds, and with the change in the accounting procedure where the state has to release its share within 21 days or face penalty, the State Government is finding it difficult in providing the state share for various CSSs.

Zeliang asked the Economic Advisory Council to consider separate funds allocation to meet the requirement of the state share for CSSs.

Nagaland, he stated, presents a unique opportunity to foster an ecosystem of entrepreneurship that can drive economic growth of the region. “To this end, it is imperative to develop a supportive ecosystem that encourages the establishment of entrepreneurial ventures, innovative starts ups and skill centers”, he added.

He said that the tertiary sector contributes the largest with 69% share to the economy of the state followed by the primary sector at 21% and the secondary sector at 10%. The low contribution to the state economy from the secondary sector, he informed is largely due to the prevalence of weak industrial base coupled with bottlenecks in the trade linkages. Therefore, the priority sector for the state is to improve connectivity, tourism and hospitality sector and developing industrial base particularly the agro-processing industry, Zeliang stated.

He meanwhile noted that power is a prerequisite need both for infrastructure and investments, and as such the State Government is actively seeking to improve its generation capacity through hydro projects and renewable energy.

However, the present ceiling limits imposed on the north eastern states for seeking funding under Externally Assisted Projects has severely impacted the capacity addition plans of the state, he said and requested the EAC to revisit this imposition.

“The roadmap to 2047 is transformation for the state of Nagaland. Through development of infrastructure, connectivity, and technology driven investments, we would like to march in tandem with the rest of the country,” Zeliang said.

The meeting was chaired by the Chief Secretary and was attended by the Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM, Dr Bibek Debroy and members, along with State Government officials of various departments.