The reason for economic backwardness of India’s northeast, accounting for 7.7 per cent of country’s geographical area and 3.72 per cent of its population can be attributed to the tendency of the State governments in the region to overplay the ‘central neglect of the region’-card and falter in putting to effective use the available resources which by no means are insufficient. However, as things stand today, five States of the region, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura have their per capita income below the national average.

A few years back, a Union Minister stated that the Northeast had more money than it could spend. This is probably true in view of the huge developmental grants generously pushed into the region. The Department of North Eastern Region (DONER) has an annual budget of Rs.550 crores. The North Eastern Council (NEC) has another Rs.500 crores earmarked for the region. This amount in totality is a small part of the enormous amount of funding available to the States through different central schemes, one-time packages announced by successive Prime Ministers, ‘Peace Packages’ provided to States like Nagaland and Mizoram etc, grants by international development agencies like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which recently approved a master project for the Northeast of Rs.2, 000 crores.

However, in spite of the available funding, the northeast today portrays a picture of under-development, visible in its pitiable infrastructure and absence of basic civic amenities. Barring a few urban centres, the entire region clamours for urgent attention and effective planning. In Assam for example, the city of Guwahati has witnessed a tremendous growth of the service sector in the last few years. A State, which stood fourteenth among the fifteen States considered for developing the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2001, now boasts of a huge network of banks, eating joints, shopping malls, and Internet cafes. However, the symbols of development have failed to move beyond the peripheries of the capital city. Not too far away, the capital of Nagaland, Kohima boasts of more cars per person than any other city of India. Traffic congestion in Kohima’s narrow roads, however, fails to reflect the sorry state of Nagaland’s economy. One third of Mizoram’s nine-lakh population live in its capital city of Aizawl. Even though the State government claims to have electrified all of its 785 villages, districts headquarters such as Saiha receive less than eight hours of power every day.

A major part of the blame goes to the problem of insurgency. Militants in the region have prevented extension of the rail network. On many occasions, trucks carrying essential items are burnt, for failing to pay the extortion amount. Militants have burnt down schools, made businessmen from mainland India flee the States in the name of protecting their land from the outsiders.

However, the performance of the successive political class and bureaucracy in each of the States has not been any better. Persistent demands for additional funds from the central government have not been matched by the proper utilisation of the already sanctioned funds. For example, in response to the Assam government’s charge of being starved of funds from the Non-lapsable Central Pool of Resource (NLCPR), the DONER recently accused the State government not only delaying in passing on the funds by the State Finance department to the departments implementing the NLCPR projects, but also of diversion of funds, which in some cases have landed in the coffers of the militants. In a similar charge, in June 2003, the Minister of the Department of North eastern Region (DONER), C P Thakur maintained that almost 10 per cent of the funds meant for the development of the NE region is going to the coffers of the militants, ‘in most of the schemes’. This, at best is a modest estimation.

Where as the Central government, has been following a policy of earmarking 10 per cent of the annual budget of all ministries (barring a few like the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Defence) for the northeast, minimum reciprocating gestures from the States in terms of spending the amount has been absent. Media reports, in June 2003, quoted a recently submitted report by a parliamentary committee, which maintained that the Central ministries owing to failure of the State governments’ to submit viable project reports and utilisation certificates on time, have been able to spend only six to seven per cent of their gross budgetary support in the northeast. As a result, the Central government has taken a decision not to release any funds from the NLCPR for the existing projects.

There is an urgent need for the political class in the NE States to rise above petty sloganeering to address the concerns of their own population. Keeping the people misinformed about their own inability to perform is bound to create a condition in which their own positions are threatened.