North East Council (NEC) was set up by the Govt. of India through an Act of Parliament in 1971 to act as an advisory body in respect of socio-economic and balanced development of seven N.E. States Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. The Railways being an important sector with a broad-based infrastructure for faster development of areas, the N.E. States through the forum of N.E.C. had been demanding rail links in the Hill States neighboring Assam. Accordingly, in 1979 the Govt. of India decided to lay one new line to each of the six hill states. Also NEC decided to construct a 3 Km road bridge across Brahmaputra near Tezpur. The construction was entrusted to Railways as a deposit work. Railways, in view of such a big thrust in Railway Construction Projects in NE areas, created a separate Construction organisation headed by General Manager at Guwahati, to manage and control these new and other ongoing works including BG line projects. This marked the inception of a separate Construction Organisation to be headed by General Manager/ Construction / Northeast Frontier Railway.

The first incumbent of GM/Construction /Northeast Frontier Railway was Shri N. Nilakanta Sarma who headed the organization from 18.1.1979 to 03.07.1979. The Construction Organization since its inception has been headed by Seventeen General Managers /Construction who have taken it to new heights and achieved many difficult milestones.