The central pool will be created from the unspent balance of the allocated expenditure of 10 per cent of budgets of concerned ministries.

Deputy chairman of planning commission Jaswant Singh told reporters here that the government has also decided to restructure the North East Council to make it a major funding-cum-monitoring agency. It will also include Sikkim as its full-fledged member and launch a major diplomatic initiative to establish trade and travel routes to neighbouring countries to reduce transportation costs.

Briefing reporters after the prime minister's meeting with chief ministers of the north-east states and Sikkim, Singh said a legislation for this will be introduced in the budget session.

Once the council is restructured, it will be headed by the deputy chairman of the planningcommission as this will help monitor project development in the region. The post is now held by governors in rotation.

Singh said that the planning commission had identified 41 projects - subject to the approval of the council - of which 19 are in progress. The emphasis will now be on completing these first, at a cost of around Rs 1,000 crore. The Shukla Committee set up by the United Front government had suggested setting up of the North East Development Council to be headed by the deputy chairman. The government has modified this. It also did not find it feasible to raise additional resources of Rs 93,000 crore. ``Only Rs 9,600 crore are available'', said Singh.

In reality, the north-east reorientation is a continuation of the policies set by the UF government. Even the modifications were suggested by the previous government and lacunae were pinpointed by it.

Other decisions include reorienting the planning process, identification of specific projects for the region and seeking judicial review of theSupreme Court order on curbs on using forest resources. The meeting, presided over by Vajpayee, included north-east chief ministers, home minister LK Advani and senior central-government officials.