The Hindu Business Line : Resolve row over transport sops in North-East: PMO

New Delhi, Jan. 19 The Prime Minister’s Office has stepped in to resolve the row between the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission over release of funds for the transport subsidy scheme in seven North-Eastern (N-E) States.

The Prime Minister, it is learnt, is unhappy over the conflict of opinion between the two bodies over technicalities and has instructed the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission to sort out matters.

Stating that it is a commitment made by the Centre, the Prime Minister has asked the Ministry and the Commission to “resolve the impasse”.

The Centre’s due to the small and medium scale industries in the seven N-E States in the form of transport subsidy stands at Rs 554 crore. By end of the current financial year, this amount would cross Rs 570 crore, sources said.

Since 1997-98, when the scheme was introduced along with the first industrial policy for the North-East, the Centre has disbursed Rs 552 crore under this scheme.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, which is the administrative department for the scheme, has been running from pillar to post for more than a year to get the backlog cleared but due to difference of stand between the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry, no decision could be reached. The Planning Commission is of the opinion that funds for clearing this pending subsidy should be provided from non-Plan sources.

However, the Finance Ministry feels that the arrears of an ongoing scheme under the Plan cannot be funded through non-plan resources. This had kept the DIPP shuttling between the North Block and Yojna Bhavan for more than a year following which the Prime Minister intervened early this week.

The Minister of State for Industry, Mr Ashwini Kumar, told Business Line that “in the current year we had been promptly disbursing the amounts to the industry.

The allotment for the year is Rs 55 crore and we have already disbursed Rs 54 crore.” Optimistic about an early solution, the Minister said: “The problem is with the pending amount of earlier years. The Prime Minister has asked to resolve the impasse and things will be sorted out soon.” The transport subsidy scheme was introduced in 1997 along with first industrial policy for the north east.