COOPERATION NECESSARY

This is in reference to yesterday’s report “Centre shouldn’t force policies on states: Mamata at NITI Aayog meet”. The NITI Aayog’s 7th general council meeting on Sunday has raised two pertinent questions. One is political and the other is governance-related. NITI Aayog, which replaced the socialist-era Planning Commission, is in reality a think tank and an advisory body. Its role in building bridges between the Centre and states is minimal, going by what we have seen in the last seven years. To expect it to resolve Centre-state disputes is asking for too much, which begs the question as to what the states could do to get their genuine grievances addressed. For instance, Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel and several other CMs raised pressing matters as did KCR in his fiery presser in Hyderabad. The cash-strapped states need extension of GST compensation, relaxation on borrowing limits, flexibility in National Education Policy (NEP) implementation and execution of Centrally-sponsored schemes among many others. Though the inter-state council was set up in 1990 on the recommendation of the Sarkaria Commission, over a period of time, its meetings have become a ritual. Ms Banerjee hit the nail on the head when she said the Planning Commission had always held out hope. If the Centre’s claims of Team India are to carry weight, there needs to be an institutional mechanism to address the states’ problems. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik suggested that the NITI Aayog play the role of an ombudsman. We need to have a debate on this. In the absence of any such mechanism, politics is taking precedence over governance, the classic examples being Bihar and Telangana with their chief ministers not attending the meeting. Taken together, the prime minister and state chief ministers must meet regularly. This will solve many critical issues like resource sharing. Weak state finances would impact India’s economic growth.