Rs 16 crore released for skilling North Eastern youth: Government

NEW DELHI: Government today said it has allocated Rs 16 crore for skilling the youth of North Eastern region even as it has asked these states to introduce GPS facility to obtain effective clearance of new projects.

"There is no specific scheme in the Ministry for generating employment in the region, however Rs 16 crore have been allocated under Capacity Building and Technical Assistance programme of the Ministry for the year 2015-16 for skilling the youth of the North Eastern Region," Minister of State (Independent) for DoNER Jitendra Singh said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

He said some protocols have been put in place to check the obstacles that new projects face in these areas.

"To overcome the shortcomings in new projects, states have been asked to introduce Global Positioning System (GPS) for proper gap analysis before prioritising of projects and make electronic presentation with baseline data and photos before the Empowered Committee during clearance of new projects. Email and message alerts of releases and utilisations of funds have been introduced.

"State governments have been also sensitised to release funds to the implementing agency on time and submit complete and proper information to the Ministry for getting subsequent installments against ongoing projects," Singh, the Minister for the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) said.