BJP-led Centre under-utilises budget for northeast: Congress

Jairam Ramesh. File Pic

The Congress on Saturday accused the Centre of under-utilising the budget for the northeast and said it is the only political party that can deliver justice to the states in the region.

"The Modi government's 'Bluff and Rule' policy continues to unravel. The Modi government has a history of allocating big budgets to the North East and then chronically underutilising these budgets in the last 10 years," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

He said since 2014, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has utilised the full budget for the northeast only on two occasions.

"While the UPA consistently utilised around 90 per cent of the budget, the Modi government's utilisation falls to a mere 60 per cent regularly.

"In FY23, the budget was Rs 2,755 crore. However, in June 2023, a report from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) revealed that the ministry utilised only Rs 989 crore (35.9 per cent) of its allocated budget," the former Union minister said.

In 2020-21, the fund utilisation in the case of the North East Road Sector Development scheme was 52 per cent, Ramesh claimed, adding that for the North East Special Infrastructure Development scheme, only 34 per cent of the funds were utilised.

The Congress leader said the Modi government boasts that the PM-DevINE scheme launched in 2022 outlays Rs 6,600 crore for the period from 2022-23 to 2025-26 for the holistic development of the northeastern region.

He said on December 7, 2023, the DoNER (Development of North Eastern Region)ministry informed the Rajya Sabha that only over 10 per cent of the funds (Rs 855.85 crore) under the Prime Minister's Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) were sanctioned.

"In January 2023, in the run-up to elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura, the Modi government 'doubled' the budget for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region. Given its history of bluffing with its big fund allocations and dramatic underutilisations, we await the details of how much in funds has actually reached the North East.

"@INCIndia is the only political party that can deliver justice to the states of North East India," Ramesh said, using the hashtag "#HaathBadlegaHalaat".

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