Union DoNER minister Dr. Jitendra Singh on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that adequate funds were made available to the Northeastern region to fight COVID19.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Dr Singh informed that the Union health ministry released Rs.111.34 crore to the Northeastern states during 2019-20.
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An amount of Rs.72.53 crore was released for Assam under the National Health Mission for management and containment of COVID19 pandemic, Dr Singh said.
Further, during the financial year 2020-21, an amount of Rs.265.96 crore was released to the Northeastern states which include Rs.180.04 crore for Assam under the India COVID19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package.
In addition, the DoNER ministry under the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) has sanctioned five projects worth Rs.193.32 crore in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland for strengthening health infrastructure to contain pandemic COVID19.
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Against these projects, Rs.77.33 crore has been released by the ministry to the state governments, the DoNER minister said.
Further, during 2020-21, North Eastern Council (NEC) sanctioned Rs.25.29 crore to help eight states of the Northeastern region for fighting the COVID19 pandemic.
NEC also sanctioned a sum of Rs.24.96 crore toward livelihood generation for returned migrant workers of NER due to the pandemic.
Projects sanctioned for strengthening health infrastructure of Northeast states for fighting pandemic COVID19 are at various stages of implementation.
The utilization certificates against the funds released by the DoNER ministry are not yet due, he added.