The just concluded 29 May meeting of the North-Eastern Council is significant in the sense that it has taken a number of decisions reaffirming it would continue to play its mandated role as the “regional planning body” regardless of what transpires at the NITI Ayog, New Delhi.

One thing that has been made clear is that it is not a “think tank” but a task force and it cannot be otherwise because, implicit in its very composition — the governors and chief ministers of all eight states, the Union minister in charge of the ministry for development of the Northeast region, members nominated by the President and the 2002 amendment to the NEC Act — make it a regional planning body.

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It is the clear intent of Parliament that it would be a regional executive body accountable to the nation and the people of the region for its development.

It has been thus designed and structured as an executive agency of the Union through Central undertakings like the North-east Electric Power Corporation and such other institutions for all-round development.

The NEC Act, 1971 provided for a security role as it was mandated to carry out a periodic review of the law and order situation of the region.

This was a loaded provision as the states felt that it would undermine their position and give the Council a role that should be solely with the Centre.

The late LP Singh, the last common governor of most North-east states, was of the view that the NEC should avoid any security role as it might hinder its constructive mandate, as provided by the Act itself — preparation of a “regional plan”’ and funding as well as executing regional projects either through the state or Central agencies designed to benefit two or more states of the region.

It was a prudent move as it allayed the misgivings of smaller tribal-majority states, created under the North-eastern Areas Reorganisation Act, 1971 and also affirmed the position that in the quasi-federal scheme of the Constitution, there is really no space for a “regional authority” dealing with subjects in the state list.

The creation of the ministry for development of the Northeast region by the first NDA government was, therefore, a step in the right direction and the NEC remains a platform for Northeast states, at once a pressure group and a key player in development of the region. In this background, it is good news that in the 29 May meeting, the NEC decided to fund upgradation of 12 airports covering the much-needed expansion of the runway at Umroi airport near Shillong and Tezu airport in Arunachal Pradesh.

The construction of three hangers at the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport at Guwahati has been completed to enable it to handle more traffic. Further, the NEC’s current year’s road construction budget of Rs 800 crore has been raised from the revised outlay of Rs.968.79 crore to Rs.1,118.79 crore.

More specifically, the Doner minister, Jitendra Singh, launched an ambitious “Northeast Road Sector Development Scheme”, to take up all strategically-important but hitherto neglected roads and bridges. He assured the Northeast states that the NEC would “strive to allocate liberal grant of resources in the coming years”.

The fact, however, remains that the Council could be equally effective as a facilitator in some crucial social and economic sectors, which the NEC presently avoid because in our system, planning and financing go together and therefore the states attach more importance to only those Central departments and agencies, which spend and invest and not departments or bodies engaged in developing “soft power”.

One example is the research and development labs or Central Agricultural Extension and Crop research farms, though these institutions could be game-changers in development thereby enabling proper use of physical infrastructure, which is created at a huge cost.

This point had been strongly made by Hernando de Soto Polar, the distinguished Peruvian economist, in his fascinating work, The Mystery of Capital, in which he argued that only states and political societies capable of building appropriate institutions for protecting property rights, smooth transactions of properties, settlement of payments and contractual obligations, could achieve faster and sustained growth and integrate their economies into the global economy.

From this perspective, the lack of a North-east-centric independent and competent programme evaluation division in the NEC to carry out ongoing evaluation of development activities in the region, seems to be a major gap in governance that could be only bridged by the Doner and the NEC by putting in place a programme-evaluation division within the council.

This may function through the state directorates of evaluation and evolve an area-specific methodology for ongoing evaluation of state and regional projects.

And, in particular, it should evaluate some of the innovative and bold pro-poor initiatives of the present government, aimed at providing social security to the huge work force engaged in the informal sector, population below the poverty line, small and marginal farmers, and landless agricultural labourers.

These are for example, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, a government-backed life insurance scheme, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha (social security) Bima Yojna, Atal Pension Yojna for work force in the informal sector and Rashtriya Swasthya (health) Bima Yojana, a health insurance scheme for the underprivileged.

In all these programmes, there is state contribution to individual subscribers, which is a kind of “direct benefit transfer” to raise the capabilities of the poor by provisioning of some social security. Just a year ago the Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima Yojna was launched — a new crop insurance scheme replacing two earlier ones providing for uniform payment of low insurance premium by farmers for the kharif crops.

This is most suitable for farmers in the Northeast as they depend critically for their livelihoods on kharif crops like rice grown mostly under rain-fed conditions, and jute, which is badly affected by recurring floods.

These pro-poor initiatives are founded on the PM’s ideas of “self reliance, self dignity and self independence”. Though all these programmes are being implemented in the region, there is apparently no healthy competition among the states to do better or innovate nor any regional mechanism for sharing of experience and benefit from each other’s best practices.

The NEC can bridge this gap as it falls perfectly in its mandated role as the regional planning body and in the process it can help the states and civil society to make the programmes responsive to local socio-economic compulsions. Regional transport connectivity is seen elsewhere in the developing world as the base of rapid urbanisation and urban-technology and skill entrepreneurship-led growth.

In the region, however, this is viewed in isolation, which is a serious flaw in the development strategy and a major reason for low urbanisation of the Northeast as its urban population has been around 18 per cent for quite some time, compared to the all India average of about 30 per cent.

The NEC can play a constructive role by bringing in expertise and investment in urban planning and management skills. Finally, there’s need for a Northeast-specific science technology and environment policy to meet the twin challenges of developing an innovation eco-system for providing technical solutions to the problems being faced by local industry and agriculture, and combating climate change.

The NEC could facilitate a coordinated approach to the science and technology issues by bringing in the Central and state science, technology, research and development institutions including IIT-Guwahati. Together, the programme evaluation and the reforms in science and technology system might as well transform mainly a central-funding agency providing “additive” support to states to a provider of “soft power” support that could ignite the latent capacity of the diverse people of the Northeast to excel in all spheres and not just in team sports and athletics, which they demonstrate so powerfully.

The writer is a retired IAS officer of the assam-meghalaya cadre and has served as a scientific consultant in the office of the principal scientific advisor to the government of india.