NITI Aayog, the newly constituted organization that has replaced the aged Planning Commission at the Centre, has begun its activity with the Governing Council holding the first meeting under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister in New Delhi on 7thof February. Representatives of 31 States and Union Territories, whom the Prime Minister addressed as ‘Team India’ participated in the crucial meeting in which the Prime Minister structured broad outlines of his Government’s philosophy of development away from the straight jacketed socialist pattern that has remained in place for six long decades in our country.
One discrepancy in the profitable implementation of some of the major centrally sponsored projects of national development has been that progress of implementing the projects and schemes has not been regularly monitored and reported. The Prime Minister is conscious of diversity of the Indian nation and knows that in the case of Centrally sponsored mega projects the centre shall have to move away from ‘one size fits all’ schemes and forge a better match between the schemes and the needs of States. As such, it is timely and rational that all the identified 66 mega projects are revisited and a sub-group of Chief Ministers would be set up under NITI Aayog to look into rationalizing these 66 schemes and recommend which ones to continue, which to transfer to States, and which to cut down. This is a far reaching decision because many of these schemes had got bogged with difficulties and obstructions not of universal but of regional and local level. In other words this is to induct the element of pragmatism in the schemes otherwise they could assume the potential of growing unproductive. Two more such sub-groups — one for skill development and creation of jobs within States and the other to create an institutional framework to make ‘Swachh Bharat (Clean India)’ a continuous initiative are also likely to be set up by NITI Aayog.
Some high priority areas have been identified in the meeting for short as well as long time treatment. These are of poverty and unemployment. Giving proof of his statesmanship, Prime Minister Modi appealed the Chief Ministers of all the states and heads of Union Territories to bury differences and work in a spirit of co-operation for removal of poverty and creation of opportunities of employment for youth. One important decision of the meeting was that the Chief Ministers of all states will be exhorted to take personal interest in monitoring the developmental activities underway in their respective states. We have said earlier that the discrepancy remains in monitoring the schemes and suggesting corrective measures in case obstructions come in the way. It was suggested that each State shall create post of an officer to monitor the progress of implementation.
It is important to note the renewed interpretation of federalism as co-operative and competitive federalism. Actually, the debate on the old theme of Centre-State relations has not come to an end despite Indian think tanks deliberating on it from time to time. At one point of time it was thought that the report of Sarkaria Commission was going to set this long standing controversy at rest for once and for all. But dynamics of Indian federalism and the tradition inherited from the British are such as to create more complicacies as a result of implementation of Sarkaria Commission recommendations. Now, what has trickled down from the expressions of the Prime Minister in the General Council meeting of NITI Aayog is that he wants States to endorse his concept of “cooperative and competitive federalism”. The presumption is that a system for planning and development needs to be evolved in which States essentially cooperate with the Centre in floating mega projects of development and at the same time they vie with one another in development process and in implementing these on the ground. In other words what Prime Minister wants is that the States have to be the nodal point of development. In the process of democratizing development and giving more space to the states the Prime Minister announced that he was prepared to pass on the entire amount of Rs. 3,38,562 crore provided in 2014-15 for these projects to States and with that more financial powers as well. This will be a unique and unprecedented measure of devolution of power on the States and making them financially secure to a large extent. With that there will be no grouse for the State Governments to say that the Centrally sponsored scheme could not be implemented in full owing to non release of funds by the central authority. Elucidating the concept of cooperative and competitive federalism, the Finance Minister identified growth, investment, jobs, poverty alleviation, priority decentralization, efficiency and no delay in execution of projects as priority areas while talking about re-interpretation of cooperative and competitive federalism.
The first meeting of the General Council may not have divulged entire gamut of Modi Government’s planning and development but it has undoubtedly given a peep into the new direction. Prime Minister’s appeal to the Chief Ministers of the States deserves extraordinary response. The significance of offer of cooperation in development with the states, financially empowering the states and expecting them to be at the helm of affairs as far as Centrally sponsored projects are concerned is what we find for the first time in our constitutional and administrative history in post-independence period. We expect the States to be equally responsive and responsible in the great task of removing poverty and providing employment to our youth.
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