Time to eye double-digit growth, Modi tells CMs
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday told nearly two dozen chief ministers and his cabinet colleagues in New Delhi that the challenge before the government was to take the country’s economic growth rate to double digits and augment incomes in the agriculture sector for which many important steps would have to be taken with the states’ participation.
Modi said the Indian economy “has grown at a healthy rate of 7.7%” in the fourth quarter of 2017-18 but the challenge now is to take this growth rate to double digits, vice-chairman of the federal think tank Rajiv Kumar said quoting the PM.
Modi was chairing the fourth governing council meeting of the federal think tank NITI Aayog that replaced the erstwhile Planning Commission of India three years ago. The governing council comprises the chief ministers of all states and is headed by the PM. Twenty-three CMs and the lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar were present at Sunday’s meeting.
The PM said while the world is looking at India soon becoming a $5 trillion economy, the states should set their own “ambitious economic growth targets” to achieve faster growth for the country. Noting that many states have started their own investors’ summits, Modi said they need to focus on exports.
He also announced the setting up of a committee of seven CMs headed by Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan to suggest measures to integrate the employment guarantee scheme MNREGA with agriculture. The committee was formed on Sunday after a number of states including Bihar and Andhra Pradesh raised the demand that the two sectors be aligned better. Apart from the two, the CMs of Sikkim, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal will also be on the committee.
The committee’s recommendations will be used to come up with “a coordinated policy”, NITI officials said.
Sharing details, Kumar said the committee will explore ways to link the employment scheme with pre-sowing activities like irrigation and post-harvest needs like preparing markets and storage facilities.
Kumar said the Centre will also in the near future provide the states “a bouquet of alternatives” to augmenting the minimum support price (MSP) paid for farm produce so that farmers’ incomes are at least one and a half times of their input costs – a long-standing promise of the current government.
The issues discussed at the meeting included doubling of farmers’ income, development of “aspirational districts”, the universal health cover and insurance schemes under Ayushman Bharat, the countrywide immunisation programme for toddlers and mothers, Mission Indradhanush, the Nutrition Mission and celebrations of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi in 2019.
Modi said the council has approached complex issues of governance as “Team India”, in the spirit of cooperative, competitive federalism. He said schemes such as Mudra Yojana, Jan Dhan Yojana and Stand Up India were helping in greater financial inclusion. Tackling economic imbalances is a top priority, he added.
While adding that all aspects and parameters of human development need to be addressed and improved upon in the 115 aspirational districts – chosen by NITI last year for fast track development – he advised states to identify at least 20% of their backward blocks as “aspirational” on similar lines and work for their development.
The Gram Swaraj Abhiyan has emerged as a new model for implementation of schemes, he said, adding that the government will provide universal coverage of seven government schemes to all the households in 45,000 villages in the aspirational districts.
With Naidu and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar raising the issue of special status for their states, Modi said the Centre is committed to the “statutory provisions at the time of bifurcation of states”, Kumar told reporters after the meeting.
PM SAYS WHILE WORLD IS LOOKING AT INDIA SOON BECOMING A $5 TRILLION ECONOMY, STATES SHOULD SET ‘AMBITIOUS ECONOMIC GROWTH TARGETS’