New industry promotion scheme for North East is being considered: Nirmala Sitharaman

GUWAHATI: With Congress making electoral issue of suspension of registration under the schemes of North East Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy, 2007 (NEIIPP), Union minister for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that a new industry promotion scheme for North East is being considered by the Ministry of Finance whereby the future funding could be re-routed through the DoNER ministry using its Non Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR-Central Scheme).

The minister was in Guwahati to attend BJP Assam Pradesh inaugural Conclave of preparation of Vision document "Assam Nirman".

According to a statement from the BJP, "Sitharaman took on the Tarun Gogoi government’s ‘misinformation’ campaign on the alleged scrapping of the NEIIPP.

Gogoi has alleged following the Centre’s move. Registration under the schemes of NEIIPP is stopped since December 1, 2014. Special fiscal package United Front was brainchild of United Front government. The policy came into force in 1997 and lapsed in 2007.Dr Manmohan Singh revised the policy in 2007.

Sitharaman added, "NEIIPP as a policy has several loopholes. It was an open ended scheme with no limit on the number of proposals to be accepted from the industries. However, very limited budget was allocated for the same. Only approx Rs 700 Crores were earmarked for NEIPP in the 11th Five Year Plan. To put it in contrast, the disbursement in a single year 2014-15 has been more than that,".

The minister added the NEIPP has resulted in uneven sectoral growth with most of the benefits going to only a few sectors like cement industry. There is a need to rationalise this before re-opening the scheme for fresh proposals.