GUWAHATI, May 17: The North-East states have nothing to look forward to during Prime Minister I K Gujral's proposed five-day tour of the area beginning next Monday.

Gujral, who arrives at Dibrugarh on Monday, will inaugurate the Railways' broad-gauge extension to the easternmost town of the railway network there.

He will then return to Guwahati, where he will have routine meetings with delegations of citizens and political parties.

His predecessor H D Deve Gowda's ambitious and much-hyped Rs 6,100-crore economic package for the northeastern region, which was announced during his visit in October last, has not made any progress.

According to reports, even the special monitoring cell for the package, set up in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is not functioning properly. This has been blamed on the fact that most of the Centre's departments and ministries are yet to actually set up their respective `North-east cells' so far.

Earlier, Gowda had to issue repeated instructions to the ministries due to the latter's reluctance to abide by his announcement that 10 per cent of their annual funds should be allocated to the North-East.

That the implementation of the Rs 6,100-crore economic package had not gathered momentum was evident from the fact that both the Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and his Tripura counterpart Dasarath Deb had to remind Gujral to set up a special monitoring cell in the PMO to ensure implementation of the package.

Soon after Gujral announced his intention to tour the northeastern region, Mahanta submitted a memorandum to him last week while Deb sent a letter to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, stressing the need for a monitoring cell. On the insurgency front also, Gujral does not appear to have much to say, as his predecessor's open invitation to the armed rebels for a dialogue has not evoked much response.

While the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M) leaders Thingleuing Muivah and Issak Chisi Swu met Gowda at Davos in February, the ULFA leaders have refused to come for negotiations unless the issue of sovereignty figures on the agenda.

The suggestion of a high-level commission headed by Planning Commission member S P Shukla for allocation of Rs 25,000 crore for infra-structural facilities in the backward northeastern regions is also pending implementation.

Meanwhile, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) has already described the Prime Minister's proposed visit to the region as ``fruitless''.

The AASU has pointed out that it was futile to announce economic packages without first tackling the infiltration problem effectively. The student body has also criticised the continued deployment of the Army. They have demanded that the Centre come up with practical solutions to remove the sense of deprivation and neglect among the northeastern people instead.