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* `Plan panel should not set targets for States' *
Special Correspondent
* Achuthanandan wants States to be given freedom to formulate their plans *
* V.S. Achuthanandan at the NDC meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. *
NEW DELHI: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Saturday said it was
neither appropriate nor acceptable that the Planning Commission should fix
social sector, output and employment targets for States. At the same time,
he said these and other reservations the State had about the Approach Paper
for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan would not "stand in the way of my accepting
whatever `consensus' emerges at this meeting of the National Development
Council."
The Commission's bid to set targets for States would run contrary to the
federal spirit of the Constitution and restrict democracy, the Chief
Minister pointed out. "When the electorate of a State elects one government
as opposed to another, it *ipso facto* chooses one particular development
strategy.... If the Planning Commission specifies a set of detailed targets
for each State Government, then it is negating that choice of the
electorate. State Governments must have the freedom to work out their own
plans if the electoral choice of the people is to be respected."
Besides citing these two political reasons for disagreeing with the
Commission's attempt to set targets for States, Mr. Achuthanandan dwelt at
length on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to
highlight the operational difficulties in meeting such goals. He said the
Mission — far from constituting a significant addition to the States'
resources — put States in a fiscal bind. "It is hardly appropriate for the
Planning Commission to fix social sector targets for States when programmes
such as the JNNURM catch them with `conditionalities,' which make these
targets that much more difficult to achieve.''
The Chief Minister also found fault with what he described as the Planning
Commission allowing the private sector to "cherry pick." This was in
reference to the paper projecting "the State not as withdrawing from the
economic arena, but as engaging with it in a different manner by focussing
on those spheres where the private sector was loath to enter and leaving the
other spheres to the private sector."
About Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), Mr. Achuthanandan said the inherent
rigidities and "bewildering multiplicity" of such programmes make them
difficult to cope with. Add to this, the preference within the bureaucracy
for infrastructure projects over social schemes; a case in point being the
Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Also, he articulated Kerala's long-standing grievance about being penalised
for its social achievements. The second generation problems arising from the
success of Kerala's social progress required resources for their solution.
If the Centre could not accept Kerala's plea for pooling funds meant for CSS
and distributing them among States according to certain criteria, he said
the least it could consider was building in an element of flexibility into
CSS.
* *
(c) Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu
* `Plan panel should not set targets for States' *
Special Correspondent
* Achuthanandan wants States to be given freedom to formulate their plans *
* V.S. Achuthanandan at the NDC meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. *
NEW DELHI: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Saturday said it was
neither appropriate nor acceptable that the Planning Commission should fix
social sector, output and employment targets for States. At the same time,
he said these and other reservations the State had about the Approach Paper
for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan would not "stand in the way of my accepting
whatever `consensus' emerges at this meeting of the National Development
Council."
The Commission's bid to set targets for States would run contrary to the
federal spirit of the Constitution and restrict democracy, the Chief
Minister pointed out. "When the electorate of a State elects one government
as opposed to another, it *ipso facto* chooses one particular development
strategy.... If the Planning Commission specifies a set of detailed targets
for each State Government, then it is negating that choice of the
electorate. State Governments must have the freedom to work out their own
plans if the electoral choice of the people is to be respected."
Besides citing these two political reasons for disagreeing with the
Commission's attempt to set targets for States, Mr. Achuthanandan dwelt at
length on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to
highlight the operational difficulties in meeting such goals. He said the
Mission — far from constituting a significant addition to the States'
resources — put States in a fiscal bind. "It is hardly appropriate for the
Planning Commission to fix social sector targets for States when programmes
such as the JNNURM catch them with `conditionalities,' which make these
targets that much more difficult to achieve.''
The Chief Minister also found fault with what he described as the Planning
Commission allowing the private sector to "cherry pick." This was in
reference to the paper projecting "the State not as withdrawing from the
economic arena, but as engaging with it in a different manner by focussing
on those spheres where the private sector was loath to enter and leaving the
other spheres to the private sector."
About Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), Mr. Achuthanandan said the inherent
rigidities and "bewildering multiplicity" of such programmes make them
difficult to cope with. Add to this, the preference within the bureaucracy
for infrastructure projects over social schemes; a case in point being the
Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Also, he articulated Kerala's long-standing grievance about being penalised
for its social achievements. The second generation problems arising from the
success of Kerala's social progress required resources for their solution.
If the Centre could not accept Kerala's plea for pooling funds meant for CSS
and distributing them among States according to certain criteria, he said
the least it could consider was building in an element of flexibility into
CSS.
* *
(c) Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu