Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region


The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region is a Government of India ministry, established in September 2001, which functions as the nodal Department of the Central Government to deal with matters related to the socio-economic development of the eight States of Northeast India: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. It acts as a facilitator between the Central Ministries/ Departments and the State Governments of the North Eastern Region in the economic development including removal of infrastructural bottlenecks, provision of basic minimum services, creating an environment for private investment and to remove impediments to lasting peace and security in the North Eastern Region.
The current, Minister of Development of North Eastern Region is Jitendra Singh.

Functions and responsibilities

The Department of Development of North Eastern Region was created in 2001 and was accorded the status of a full-fledged ministry on May 2004. The ministry is mainly concerned with the creation of infrastructure for economic development of North-Eastern region.
Main activities/functions of the DoNER.
The ministry has following organisations functioning under it:

Northeast India connectivity projects

Commerce with South and East Asian nations accounts for almost 45% of India's foreign trade. Myanmar and ASEAN nations are part of India's Look East policy. India is part of ASEAN+6, Asia Cooperation Dialogue, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Asian Clearing Union, Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal Initiative, BIMSTEC, East Asia Summit, Mekong-Ganga Cooperation, SAARC, South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway network.
Major initiatives covered are Transport between India and Bangladesh, Bangladesh–India border, India-Myanmar barrier, Bhutan–India border, McMahon Line, etc.

Bridges

International roads

NE has 5,000 km border with Nepal, Bhutan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar while being isolated and connected to rest of India by 20 km narrow chicken-neck Siliguri Corridor.
13,500 km were NH out of total 3,76,819 km of road length in NE.
and .
— 73 border roads: incl. Sikkim and Arunachal, all to be completed by March 2022.
— 410 border bridges:
- 144 in Arunachal,
- 40 in Sikkim under construction.
— 17 border rail and road tunnels: total length of 100 km,
- Arunachal,
- North Sikkim .

Airports development

NER Airports. Indian government was upgrading 12 non-operational airports into operational airports in NE. LGBIA Guwahati will operate as the inter-regional hub and Agartala Airport, Dibrugarh Airport and Imphal Airport will operate as intra-regional hubs by extending runways and apron, and by building terminal building and maintenance hangars at these airports. 3 new greeenfield under-construction airports are Itanagar Holangi Airport, Pakyong Airport-Operationalized and Chiethu Airport.
Airports development phase-I (fy2016-17 to fy2019-20)
will spend between 2018-2020, including the following will be completed by 2019-20 :
Centre govt will invest further to develop more NR airports. Several advanced landing ground heliports will be upgraded from to the dual army-civilian airports. Likely includes the following:
Among Airports in Northeast India, following were connected under UDAN
UDAN flights
UDAN Phase-I flights started at Shillong Airport, Dimapur Airport, Imphal International Airport, Silchar Airport, Lengpui Aizawl Airport and Agartala Airport.
UDAN Phase-II flights started at TBA?
Other flights
2014-2017 NEC plan proposes to work towards starting the following flights:

International NE waterways

As of December 2017, power transmission grid project approved in 2014 is being implemented of which 2,540 km lines already laid, and 16 hydro power projects of 5676 MW being implemented and additional 694 MW projects already implemented.

Tourism

Projects include approval of in 2016 to prevent erosion of world's largest riverine island of Majuli, development of Spiritual Circuit in Manipur, Tourist Circuit in Sikkim, Tribal Circuit in Nagaland and Umiam Lake in meghalaya.