After U-turn on Demonetisation, Nitish Kumar Makes Strong Push for Special Status for Bihar
He demanded a similar kind of set up under Niti Aayog as it has replaced the Planning Commission.
Nitish said that analysis of data on development shows that some states were far below the national average on multiple parameters like per capita income, education, health, electricity, institutional finance and other indices of Human Development.
“Any rational economic strategy should foster both investment and devolution patterns which would enable these states to reach the national average within a stipulated time frame. Our demand for Special Category Status for Bihar emanates from this very premise,” he said.
He said that his government has repeatedly raised the demand to the central government to accord special category status to Bihar, as it will enhance the availability of resources by lowering the state contribution in centrally sponsored schemes, improve access to external resources, act as a catalyst for private investment based on tax breaks and concessions and act as a spur to employment generation and improve life quality.
He also questioned the much-hyped revenue sharing formula of the 15th finance commission, which raises the state’s share from 32 per cent to 42 per cent, terming it a compositional shift.
“The increase in tax transfers was negated to a large extent by the reduction in allocations by the Centre for the central plan schemes and the centrally sponsored schemes to the states and union territories,” he said.
“Furthermore, the state-wise distribution pattern also led to a decrease in Bihar's share from 10.91 per cent to 9.66 per cent. In fact, in the recommendations of the last four finance commissions, our share in the divisible pool of taxes has steadily gone down — from 11.58 per cent in eleventh to 11.02 per cent in twelfth to 10.91 per cent in thirteenth and then to 9.66 per cent now,” he said.
Nitish also drew attention to the yearly devastating floods that ruin agriculture and said the state government has to incur heavy expenditure on relief and rehabilitation.
Strongly pitching for relying on the latest census for distributing resources, he said, “It is our firm view that latest population data is of utmost importance to capture the demographic change and it helps to assess the needs of the people quantitatively. Ultimately, basic entitlements are to be ensured to every citizen or else only "islands" of development would be created,” he said.
“Therefore, 15th FC's term of reference to consider the population of 2011 for horizontal and vertical distribution is a welcome step and was long overdue. Some of the states are opposing this but their disagreement is not logical as the ToR recognizes the efforts of states in population control,” he added.
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