NEW DELHI: In an obvious dig at Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh today said the PMO had regained its place under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while over the past ten years its authority was exercised from somewhere else.
Dr Singh’s remarks came while delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture in which he credited the Modi Government with ushering in an era of real devolution of power and cooperative federalism.
The Minister said, ”I am often confronted with questions like whether the PMO existed today, I reply to them that the PMO has become what it was not during the last ten years as its authority was exercised from somewhere else.”
He strongly dismissed the charges of authoritarianism against the Modi Government. One can say that with Nehru and Independence began one era of the country’s history that saw its sunset with the coming into power of Prime Minister Modi who ushered the country into a very different phase of its development where the ”command and control approach” of the past was discarded, Dr Singh said.
He counted the dismantling of the Planning Commission and creation of NITI Aayog, the consensus on GST and enhanced devolution of funds through the 14th Commission as major steps towards establishing cooperative federalism.
”This will go down in history as Modi doctrine,” he said. Dr Singh stressed that ”in a paradigmatic shift from the command and control approach of the past, NITI Aayog accommodates diverse points of view in a collaborative setting. In the spirit of federalism, NITI’s own policy thinking too is shaped by a ‘bottom-up’ approach rather than ‘top-down model.”
Similarly, the government accepted the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission increasing the share of states in divisible pool of taxes to 42 percent against 32 percent mandated under the 13 Finance Commission.
He said now that the state were receiving majority of funds unconditionally in the form of devolution of taxes, they have the flexibility to use the money as local needs and aspirations. ”This is clearly promoting co-operative federalism where states were being treated as equal partners in growth,” he said.
Dr Singh described the consensus on bringing the GST bill as a historic step that would end the multiplicity of taxes and bind the nation in one system.
The creation of the GST Council was a daring and remarkable experiment in the Indian democratic practice as from now on all indirect tax matters will have to be discussed, debated and decided between the states and the Centre on ongoing basis, he said.
Dismissing all allegations of authoritarianism against the Modi Government, he said the Prime Minister was implementing in letter and spirit his motto of ”sab ka saath, sab ka vikas”.
The Minister said after the 2014 elections in which a single party won absolute power, there was apprehension in certain quarters that the ruling party might enfeeble the federal structure, but the successive steps of the government proved such elements wrong.
Earlier, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore paid tribute to Sardar Patel, saying that had achieved the Himalayan task of unification of the princely states after Independence. Col Rathore also praised the response of Sardar Patel to the tribal raids on Kashmir supported by Pakistan Army regulars just after Independence.
The function was also attended by Prasar Bharati chairman Dr Surya Praksash and other members of the board and senior functionaries of the Doordarshan and All India Radio.
Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary on October 31st is being celebrated as ‘Ekta Diwas’, Unity day. The Sardar Patel memorial lecture was organised by the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati. (AGENCIES)
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