‘The North-East Region (NER) is one of the backward region of India characterized by

• low per-capita income,
• lack of private investment,
• low capital formation,
• inadequate infrastructure facilities,
• Geographical isolation,
• Inadequate exploitation of natural resources like minerals, hydro power potential, and forests.
• Its own tax collection and internal resources are quite meagre rendering the region totally dependent on central devolution.

Except for Sikkim and Tripura and to some extent Mizoram, other states have not done well in improving their economic growth and Assam accounts for almost 70 per cent of NER population, and has been the laggard state on almost all development indicators, it has pulled down the overall performance of the region. Though central government has to pay more attention to the North-east, the state administrations have to gear up too for inclusive development and unfortunately governance in NER is quite weak and fraught with following challenges:

Challenges

Fund Utilisation-

• The Union Ministries are required to mandatorily earmark 10 per cent of their Gross Budgetary Allocation (GBA) annually for the North Eastern Region. While some projects are implemented on ime, the other projects get delayed because funds are not transferred to them on time, the utilization capacity of these states is poor, and the works are hampered due to the short working season.
• Many external projects funded by ADB and the World Bank in NER are languishing because
  o Due to time lag between release of funds and sanction of the projects,
  o Non-submission of utilisation certificates in time by the State Governments,
  o Problems released to land acquisition and forest clearance, prevailing law and order situation and limited working season due to high rainfall.
  o Lack of available baseline data and no community participation in preparation of Project implementation Plans (PIPs)

Monitoring and Evaluation Systems:

• The data collected are not used for taking corrective and remedial action or for analysis, but only for forwarding to a higher level. The data collected are not normally subjected to any regular checks and verification for their correctness.
• Process reforms are needed so that field date is authentic, reliable and tallies with the evaluated data and state governments report inflated figures from the districts, which renders monitoring ineffective and accountability meaningless.

e-Government

• A World Bank report on Assam observed in 2014 that there was absence of a comprehensive ICT Plan, and there was no common framework for service delivery, including a strong and supporting ICT infrastructure.
• No tele-medicine or m-Health initiatives have been rolled out in the Nagaland
• Available IT infrastructure is poor owing to difficult terrain, there is lack of physical connectivity and poor network of phone and internet.

Redundant Bureaucracy
There are two specific constraints in the NER.

• The non- plan expenditure of NE states is quite high due to huge presence of group C and D staff, such as clerks, peons, etc., who are not needed now. Because of this NE states end up with having insufficient funds for plan expenditure, despite liberal central devolution. A combination of misaligned organizational structures marked by overlap and duplication of functions across and within departments, poorly structured system and processes, poor human resources management and inadequate incentives has weakened administrative capacity to efficiently carry out core government functions.
• The other problems peculiar to the NER is the culture of ‘bandhs’ (State closure) widely prevalent in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland that goes against the notion of individual rights.

Conclusion

• Increasing the availability of financial resources will not be sufficient now but the capacity of institutions and individuals in the North East to make effective use of available resources that is proving the critical constraints to growth.
• Institutions-building calls for strengthening State departments and agencies, as well as promoting fruitful partnerships between civil society and State Governments. Strengthening of institutions of local self-government is particularly important.
• Effective devolution, reinforced by social audit, will considerably strengthen monitoring and vigilance at the grassroots level and, hopefully, gradually impacts higher echelons of governance