Give more powers to state: Chief Minister

NEW DELHI: “The general approach of the Union Planning Commission and of the Central Ministries to proposals and suggestions from State Governments has been arrogant and condescending. States have been placed at the whim and mercy of different Ministries in Delhi to receive approvals and sanctions wherever such approvals are required,” TN Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said.

Mr Panneerselvam complained that state governments are not regarded as equal partners in the governance and development process, but as mere local supplicants.  
“It often seems to be forgotten that it is the same people who vote the Central Government to power and also the State Governments. It is the same people whom both levels of Government need to serve,” he said.

Arguing that Tamil Nadu has an extensive hilly area, he said the growing demographic and economic pressures on these ecological sensitive areas underlines the continued need to implement these programmes with substantially enhanced allocations.  On the new body, he said Chief Ministers must be given representation in the new body and the views of the States heard at different levels in the hierarchy of the organization to make planning a federally empowered function with active participation of the States.  

He also asked the Prime Minister and the Union Government to ensure that the Council does not become a “mere ritualistic exercise” but the Centre should indulge in policy co-ordination with the States in all seriousness and genuinely respect the views of the State Governments  He also pitched the need for adoption of greater fairness in the criteria adopted for allocation of Central Assistance, an approach which penalizes States which have already invested their own resources to provide basic infrastructure is neither fair nor does it incentives performance.  

There was an opportunity to ‘re-order Centre-state financial relations’ in lines with contemporary reality of political economy, Panneerselvam said and urged Modi to adopt a ‘bold approach’ for this purpose.He asked the Centre to effect transfer of cash to bank accounts of beneficiaries through state governments, as it would be an “administratively sound practice.”