New Delhi: In a bid to develop northeastern states, the Central Government has incurred an expenditure of Rs 3,36,640.97 crore in the last five years. Official data accessed by ETV Bharat shows that the government spent Rs 70,874.32 crore in 2021-22. Several infrastructure development projects as well as connectivity projects including air connectivity, railways, roadways, waterways, power as well as telecom connectivity have been taken up in the past five years.
Air connectivity:As many as 28 projects have been completed from 2016-17 to 2021-22 with the approved cost of Rs 975.58 crore and completion cost of Rs 979.07 crore. There are 15 ongoing projects with sanctioned amount of Rs 2,212.30 crore.
Rail connectivity:As of April this year, the Ministry of Railways has sanctioned 19 projects costing Rs 77,930 crore for 1,909 km length falling fully and partly in the Northeastern region, including those sanctioned since 2014, which are at different stages of planning, approval, and execution, out of which 409 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs 30,312 crore incurred up to March this year.
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Road connectivity: A total of 4016.48 km road length projects costing Rs 58,385 crore are ongoing in the region. These projects were undertaken during the last five years. The completed projects in the Northeast cover a length of 3099.50 km at a cost of Rs 15,570.44 crore. The ongoing projects are likely to be completed by May 2024.
Waterways connectivity:Waterways are being developed with fairways of required depth and width, day and night navigation aids, and terminals. The facilities created and planned would cost Rs 461 crore in five years (2020-2025). River Barak was also declared National Highway-16 (NW-16) which connects Silchar, Karimganj, and Badarpur in Cachar valley of Assam with Haldia and Kolkata ports through the Indo-Bangladesh protocol route. The facilities created and planned would cost Rs 145 crore during the period.
Power connectivity:The Ministry of Power has taken several initiatives for the development of hydropower, thermal power as well as gas-based power projects. The government has also taken steps to enable states including northeastern states to strengthen their power distribution systems by providing funding for the creation and augmentation of sub-transmission and distribution infrastructure along with metering and IT enablement of distribution infrastructure etc.
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Telecom connectivity:The department of telecommunication has also undertaken several projects in the Northeastern states for strengthening telecom connectivity in the region. Significantly, the department of telecommunication has also hired 10 Gbps international bandwidth for internet connectivity to Agartala from BSCCL, Bangladesh via Cox Bazar. In the northeastern States, 1,358 towers covering 1,246 villages have been installed and providing services.
