GUWAHATI, February 1: A coterie is at work to make the resource-starved Assam state Electricity Board (ASEB) bleed more white, even as the Board is facing serious problems in matters of revamping its power generation, transmission and distribution network. This has come to light with the developments concerning payment of several lakhs of rupees against faulty repair of the stacker-cum-reclaimer of the Bongaigaon Thermal Power Station. Though the amount involved in the case is seemingly tried to be dismissed as a meagre amount by the vested interest circles inside the electricity board, the entire affair speaks volumes about the sort of financial discipline vis-à-vis underhand dealings, in the ailing ASEB. (Staff Reporter; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 2, 2000)

SHILLONG, February 2: Union minister of state for banking, Babasaheb V Patel today asked the banking sector to reverse the trend of declining Credit Deposit Ratio (CDR) in the Northeast states. Addressing a special state level bankers’ committee meeting of the Northeast states here this afternoon, he expressed concern that four out of the seven states in the region have CDR below 25 per cent as against the all-India average of 55.5 per cent. It appeared, the banks while collecting deposits in the region are deploying these funds somewhere else. This has to stop and the banks have to find out ways to reverse the trend", he told the meeting. (Special Correspondent; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 3, 2000)

NEW DELHI, February 3: The air of uncertainty hanging over implementation of the special packages for the economic development of the Northeast is likely to clear soon, with the Prime Minister’s Office writing to the various central ministries to furnish ‘activity report’ on status of the various projects in the region within— February 10, highly placed sources said. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the sources said, after scrutinising the ‘activity reports’ would prepare a schedule for early execution of the projects within a specific time-frame. With the PMO entering the scene after Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the Rs 10,271 crore ‘agenda’ which endorses several of the projects sanctioned under the HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral packages, implementation of the projects are expected to be expedited. The ministry of home affairs and the Planning Commission which have been monitoring the progress of the projects so far achieved mixed results as several of the central ministries threw the spanner into the works. "But now with the PMO monitoring the progress, things are likely to be different," said a top official, connected with developments in the region. And one of the first action taken by the Prime Minister’s Office after the Shillong meeting was to sent out a memo to all central ministries implementing projects in the region to furnish a ‘activity report’ specifying the progress made and status of the projects. The reason for this action may have to do with the clamouring from the region by its chief ministers and MPs who have constantly been complaining about lack of initiative on part of the central government to implement the economic packages. ‘The impression had gone out that the central government was only interested in announcing packages and not implementing them, sources said. (Kalyan Barooah; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 4, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 3: The Assam cabinet today approved the Information Technology Policy of the state to give a boost to the information technology industry in the state. Official sources said that the state government has decided to give thrust to information technology and to educate all the students in the technology by the year 2004. An official release said the cabinet today decided to pay revised AICTE pay scale to the technical teachers and UGC pay scales to the non-technical teachers of the government polytechnics with effect from January 1, 1996. (Staff Reporter; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 4, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 3: The ambitious storm water drainage project of the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) received a serious setback due to the apathetic attitude of the NF Railway authorities. As a part of the project, the GMDA proposed to construct a storm water drain along the railway line from the Chandmari flyover to the B Barooah Road overbridge at a cost of Rs 49.18 lakh. But the Railway authorities have imposed certain conditions for handing over the land for the construction of the drain and now it seems that the project would not be implemented within the current financial year to give a much needed respite to the citizens from the water-logging problem in the Chandmari area of the city in the coming rainy season. The senior divisional engineer of the NF Railways, in a letter to the chief executive officer of GMDA, said that there is no benefit or need of the drain to the Railways and on the contrary, a very important strip of the land in the prestigious and highly populated area has to be relinquished, which may adversely affect future development. (Staff Reporter; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 4, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 4: The chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta today unveiled the Information Technology policy of Assam, 2000. The policy will be notified soon. The basic objectives of the Information Technology Policy of Assam include priority to the growth of IT industry for socio-economic development, to facilitate use of IT in government sector with a view to providing better services to the citizens, to increase employment avenues in the state for educated youths, to make the state an attractive destination for investment in information technology sector, to encourage use of IT in schools, colleges and other educational institutions to enable youths to acquire necessary skills in the sector making them highly employable. To make Assam an attractive destination for investment in IT sector, the policy is equipped with a comprehensive incentive package. The incentives include sales tax exemption, power subsidy, state capital investment subsidy, subsidy on generating sets, subsidy on hotline and lease line connectivity, manpower development subsidy and subsidy on quality certification. The Industries and Commerce Department would be the nodal agency for implementation of Information Technology Policy of Assam. The policy shall come into effect from the date of notification of this policy till such time, the government may consider it fit and proper. The government also reserves the right to make any amendments in the policy. Salient features of the policy are : the government shall endeavour to have connectivity among all its offices within 2004 so that communication can flow through e-mail/video conferencing to enhance productivity, the government shall make a special budget allocation of at least 2-3 per cent of the plan fund allocated to government departments every year to complete its computerisation programme in each department; an IT sub-plan will be formulated department-wise and closely monitored; connectivity among various educational institutions would also be established by 2004; the government shall encourage the private sector to establish Software Technology Parks (STPs) in the state, an ‘electronic’ sub-urban town will be set up in an appropriate location having fully developed integrated infrastructure facilities. (Correspondent; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 5, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 4: The Centre for Infrastructure Management (CIM) of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, in its voluminous report, Reform/Restructuring of Assam Power Sector, has suggested, among others, establishment of an electricity regulatory commission, creation of Assam Power Corporation (APC), creation of distribution companies and their financial restructuring and privatisation of distribution companies. The ASCI final report was submitted to the Assam state Electricity Board (ASEB) in May, 1999. The ASCI was appointed by the ASEB as consultant to workout the detailed action plan and time schedule for giving effect to the policy of the state government for restructuring the state power sector. The state government wished a restructuring of the state power sector in line with the guidelines of power sector reforms initiated by the government of India in 1991. (Ajit Patowary; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 5, 2000)

SHILLONG, February 4: The Meghalaya government has hiked the rate of tax on motor spirits, including petrol, by 20 per cent against the present rate of 10 per cent, thereby bringing petrol prices in Meghalaya at par with those in Assam. The hike, which was effected on February 3, was made in tune with the decision of the Northeast states to implement the uniform floor rates of sales tax all over the country. The hike has made petrol dearer in Meghalaya by about Rs 2.50, but this will enable the government to garner an additional revenue of about Rs 1.5 crore annually. (UNI; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 5, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 5: The fund-starved Assam government, which often finds it difficult to pay the salaries to its employees on time, is spending huge amounts of money every month to provide escort to the ‘VIPs’ from Assam as well as from other states of the country. All ministers, MLAs and senior government officials, as well as the ‘VIPs’ of other states proceeding through Guwahati and the ‘VIPs,’ who come to Assam on official and private visits, are provided escort vehicles from the city police reserve and it is learnt that on an average, about 450 to 500 escort vehicles originate from the office of the motor transport officer of the city police reserve. Police sources said that at least 3,000 litres of petrol, oil and lubricants (POL) is spent everyday on an average on escort vehicles. The city police reserve now has 203 vehicles on its own and everyday, almost the same number of vehicles have to be requisitioned to provide escort to the ‘VIPs’ from Assam and other parts of the country, spending huge amount of government money. Police sources revealed that till a few months back, the city police reserve used to spend at least 5,000 litres of POL everyday on escort vehicles and at that time, the escort vehicles used to take POL from a city based petrol depot. But a few months back, the police cooperative society opened a petrol depot on its own and surprisingly, the POL intake by escort vehicles came down by 2,000 litres everyday since the escort vehicles started taking POL from the police petrol depot, which proved that some serious irregularities must have taken place at the time when the vehicles used to take POL from a private depot. (R Dutta Choudhury; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 6, 2000)

AIZAWL, February 5: Representatives of the Northeast states have asked the Centre not to withdraw the population living above poverty line (APL) from the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) as the region was a late starter in the country’s overall socio-economic development, reports UNI. The request was made during a meeting of the advisory council on consumer affairs and public distribution of Northeast states here. (UNI; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 7, 2000)

KOHIMA, February 6: The Nagaland government has decided to suspend disbursement of loans through Nagaland Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) for an indefinite period. Official sources said the state cabinet on Wednesday decided to stop loans and set up a high powered committee to examine the methodology and sustainability of the present system of loans advancement availed by cooperative societies from NCDC through the state Government. Sources said the cabinet had to take the decision as the annual debt servicing burden of the state had reached Rs 200 crore and total outstanding loans around Rs 1000 crore. (UNI; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 8, 2000)

AZARA, February 7: The Institute of Farm Management and Training Centre under the veterinary department was set up two decades back at Rani 25 km away from the Guwahati in Kamrup district. This was the first farm in the country which was set up with the aim to impart training to the educated unemployed youths. But today the farm is facing closure due to negligence of the concerned authority. The main objective of the farm is to prepare schemes and sanction loan from banks besides imparting training to the youths. The trained youths were also provided loans. Now all these systems have been paralysed and the ‘specimen farm units’ are also lying in an abandoned state for the last several years. As the training system is now closed, the farm units are also lying in abandoned state. It is learnt from some reliable sources that the farm is now hit by fund crunch for which the development works are also paralysed. The electricity board stopped the power supply last year to the farm due to non-payment of bill. Besides, non-supply of power has disrupted the water supply scheme in the farm. The employees in the residential areas have been suffering due to shortage of drinking water. (Correspondent; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 8, 2000)

JORHAT, February 8: The tea industry is faced with a peculiar dilemma. It has not been able to sell off 24 per cent of its last season’s product. And, believe it or not, drop in tea smuggling is the main reason behind the industry’s problem. Industry sources revealed that huge amounts of made tea are usually smuggled out of the country through its borders with Pakistan and then routed to other parts of the world, specially Europe and Middle-East. However, with intensified border patrolling along the Indo-Pak border, smuggling of tea has come down in recent times. "Truck-loads of tea are purchased from auction centres of the country, specially from Amritsar. These traders pay for the tea as well as for the trucks," the sources said. The smuggling served as a boon for the industry as it could dispose off all the tea that are not picked up by the regular buyers in the auction centres. At the Guwahati Auction Centre, about 11,00,000 packages of tea, which is about 35 million kgs, is still lying unsold, sources said. Added to this is the fall in the export of made tea. There is a fall of about three million kgs of made tea this year compared to previous year. Interestingly, the production has also come down by 68 million kgs compared to previous year – last year production was 840 mn kgs while this year production is 772 mn kgs. (Pullock Dutta; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 9, 2000)

AGARTALA, February 5 — The Tripura government has decided to enhance sales tax rate for petrol from the existing 8 per cent to 20 per cent. The hike was necessitated in the wake of the Centre’s not acceding to the state’s request for exemption of petrol from the purview of uniform floor rate with effect from January 1, 2000. With this rise the price of petrol per litre would increase from its earlier rate of Rs 23.40 by Rs 2.60. However, the tax rate of diesel would not be enhanced as the Centre exempted diesel from the purview of uniform floor rate as per the Tripura’s request to central government keeping in mind the state’s typical geographical location, the release said. (PTI; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 9, 2000)

GUWAHATI, February 12: The ministry of Planning and Programme Implementation has entrusted the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad to identify measures for improving the special central fund delivery mechanism and monitoring system for two autonomous hill councils of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar. The institute will analyse plan allocation and examine sequence of release of funds by the state government to hill councils and their utilisation by the council authorities. If the findings of the study are found helpful, there is possibility that the institute will be engaged to do similar investigation regarding other hill areas of the region. The decision to entrust the National Institute of Rural Development with the jobs was taken at a recent meeting of Members of Parliament and representatives of autonomous councils from the Northeast with the minister of state for planning, statistics and programme implementation, Arun Shourie. (Staff Reporter; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 13, 2000)

AGARTALA, February 13: The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has found reserve of natural gas in two new fields in Tripura. According to ONGC sources here, the reserve of gas was detected during a trial drilling by the ONGC Tripura project in Trichna and Agartala dome in West Tripura district recently. The detailed study about the total reserve in these fields as also the other aspects of the gas drilling, was in progress, company sources told PTI here on Sunday. "Agartala dome has very good potential and for Trichna the study is on," the sources said. (PTI; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 14, 2000)

DHEMAJI, February 14: Union minister of state for water resources Bijoya Chakraborty said construction works of Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra near Dibrugarh will begin in April. Chakraborty who made a two-day visit to Dhemaji on February 8-9 said the BJP will go it alone in the Assembly polls in the state and form the government in Assam. There was no difference between the AGP and Congress and the people had rejected both, she said. The Union minister visited flood-affected areas of Kherkatia, Matmara, Jerukamukh of Brahmaputra and Subansiri bank. (Correspondent; The Assam Tribune; Guwahati; February 15, 2000)