NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday again came under pressure from the Chief Ministers of North East on the demand to continue the states special category status in letter and spirit by restoring the additional central support to the remote and backward regions as done by all successive Governments.
The region, due to its difficult geography (read hilly terrain) and checkered history (read partition) could not match with the rest of the country even after 68 years of Independence, one of the Chief Ministers who held his first one to one meeting with the Prime Minister said. Chief Ministers of all the eight North Eastern states had earlier sought Modi’s intervention to continue with the Special States Category status to their respective states so that the special financial support they get from the Centre was not done away with.
The Chief Ministers through a signed resolution had said that after analyzing the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations and the Union Budget of 2015-16, they found that their Special States category status was going to be discontinued. This will be nothing but a big blow to the interest of the states which has been suffering from backwardness and under-development for long.
The Chief Ministers told Modi that under the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, all the states, irrespective of their category will receive 42 percent of the central finance. “With no additional funding, the North Eastern states will be at par with the developed states like Maharashtra and Gujarat”, he siad.
Again the decision taken in the Union Budget of 2015-16 not to keep any provision under Normal Central Assistance (NCA) and Special Central Assistance (SCA) will drastically affect the position of finance in the North Eastern states, the visiting Chief Ministers told the Prime Minister. Such states suffer from infrastructure bottlenecks and large dependency on the Centre for funding under NCA and SCA to meet their infrastructure requirements, he pointed out.
The Chief Ministers also pointed out that while the entire gap of Non-Plan Revenue Expenditure used to be provided by the Centre for the Special Category states. Withdrawing this status would make it extremely difficult to manage the situation arising out of it, he added.
The visiting Chief Ministers also told the Prime Minister that the sharing pattern for centrally sponsored schemes between the Special Category States and the Centre was 90:10. But the union budget has indicated that this would be discontinued forcing the states to contribute more.
“This will be a big blow to the North East states and will only add to their liabilities which at the end will hit various developmental schemes,” the Chief Minister said. The landlocked NE states with very poor revenue base will be the worst hit, he cautioned.
The Chief Ministers also pointed out that many of the centrally sponsored schemes funded by the Centre have now been left to the states. This will be another blow to the NE states which are already reeling under fund constraints and development work coming to a slow progress, he said.
When asked about the maiden visit of the Prime Minister to Bangladesh from this week, the Chief Ministers said that he hoped Modi will take up all cross border transport and connectivity issues with his counterpart. “North East states are suffering from the legacy of the partition which first created East Pakistan now Bangladesh,” he said adding “Look at the socio-economic condition of the all the NE states then and now.”
