50. The government have already decided to restructure the North Eastern Council (NEC) for speedy implementation of important infrastructural programmes in this region. Sikkim will also be included in the Council. Necessary legislation will be introduced in Parliament to effect these changes.

51. Furthermore, it has been decided that a non-lapsable Central Resource Pool will be created for deposit of funds from all Ministries where the plan expenditure on the North Eastern region is less than 10 per cent of the total plan allocation of the Ministry. The difference between 10 per cent of the allocation and the actual expenditure incurred on the North Eastern region will be transferred to the Central Pool, which will be used for funding specific programmes for economic and social upliftment of the North Eastern States.

52. The North-Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFi) promoted by public sector financial institutions and banks was incorporated in 1995. NEDFi strives to respond to the specific needs of industries in the North-East. At present there is one State Financial Corporation (SFC) in Assam and twin function Industrial Development Corporations (IDCs) in some other States. In order to foster healthy and efficient growth of these institutions, I am proposing that the refinancing function for industrial loans of SFC/IDCs of the North-East will be undertaken henceforth by NEDFi, rather than IDBI/SIDBI as at present.