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Journalism of Courage
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has called upon the government to review the functioning of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and ensure that it implements projects and schemes on time.
The committee feels that it is high time the government reviewed the functioning of the ministry and devised a mechanism to strengthen the DoNER ministry for its effective functioning so that projects and schemes meant for NER are completed in time, the panel,headed by BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu,said in its report submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman Mohammad Hamid Ansari last week.
While adopting the North-Eastern Council (Amendment) Bill,2013 and recommending its early passage in Parliament,the committee also took cognisance of the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission regarding the abolition of the ministry and restoration of responsibility for the development of the region to the department or ministry concerned. The committee noted that the government had not accepted the recommendation on the ground that the ministry provided undivided attention to the development of the Northeast. The government had,however,decided that a review of functioning of NEC and DoNER could be undertaken to make both these bodies more effective.
The NEC (Amendment) Bill seeks to provide for the nomination of two non-official members by the President and one member of the Planning Commission being ex officio in-charge of the region,fixing the term of non-official members for three years.
The Secretary,Ministry of DoNER,had maintained before the committee during its April-22 meeting: There are three nominated members of the North-Eastern Council,but unfortunately,their tenure has not been fixed. The present incumbents are there for around eight years,since March 2005. So,it is considered necessary to restrict their tenure to three years,which can be extended to a maximum of five years so that new blood is infused into the council. This is one point. The second point is that most of the member states of the North-Eastern Council have issues relating to each other,like boundary disputes. This Bill seeks to empower the council to discuss those kinds of issues among themselves and try to sort them out without the interference of the Government of India. That is the main purpose. The third one is,if the emoluments are fixed in the Act itself,it will be difficult to change it and every time when the emoluments need to be changed,we will have to amend the Act. So,we are seeking to empower the government through a subordinate legislation to fix the emoluments…earlier DoNER was a department under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Now it is a full-fledged ministry. Now we just want to change the nomenclature.
