Panaji: There was "tremendous corruption" in the northeastern states, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Sunday.

"There is tremendous corruption in the northeast. They say a road has been built, but there is no road. The money just disappears," Parrikar said at a Bharatiya Janata Party workers meeting organised as part of a 'mahasampark' campaign in South Goa's Margao town.

In an oblique reference to state Congress president Luizinho Faleiro, who has returned to Goa politics after a nearly decade-long stint as in-charge of the northeastern states, he said only those who were experts at managing "such things" were posted to the northeast.

"They have come back from the northeast. Ask them what they have done in the northeast?" Parrikar said.

Faleiro, who served as the in-charge of the northeast of the Congress for nearly eight years before taking up the Goa assignment last year, had last week attacked the BJP-led government in Goa for dragging residents into a debt trap.