PM presses states into action

The first National Development Council (NDC) meet under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which will be held on 27-28 June at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, would be different in more than one way.

Chief ministers (CM) have been asked to respond to a specific list of questions in their opening remarks. Requests have been sent to each state, that CMs should stick to raising specific issues relevant to their states and to responding to certain queries forwarded to them by the prime minister.

'Detailed speeches, which CMs will, no doubt, prepare, could be taken as read. This would definitely save a lot of time and will leave more time for discussions,' said officials. The prime minister, who wants an interactive meeting to result in concrete "outcomes", has asked the CMs to respond to a list of thirteen questions.

These include: What should be done to ensure security of tenure to civil servants, to make the proposed National Rural Employment Guarantee Act more effective and to build technical and managerial capacity for the Bharat Nirman programme.

They will have to come up with suggestions on putting in place ways to price power and water and to improve public private partnerships at the states' level to fund investment in the infrastructure.

States have also been asked to suggest ways to improve the teaching quality in primary education, encourage involvement of the private sector in secondary education and to implement the national rural health mission effectively.

There will be a single point agenda for discussion"" the mid-term appraisal of the tenth five-year plan. The document, drawn up by the Planning Commission, identifies a list of reform measures, which, if implemented, are most likely to yield results within the next two years.

"The focus will be on health, education, employment, state finances, agriculture and irrigation. These form part of corrective agenda on which a credible start can be made in the remaining part of the Tenth Plan," said Planning Commission officials.

The meeting will start with the PM's speech, followed by a presentation on the broad recommendations of the MTA by Planning Commission deputy chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Presentations by Sharad Pawar, agriculture minister, Arjun Singh, human resource development minister and P Chidambaram, finance minister are also on the agenda. These will cover the problem areas in agriculture, education and on the issue of state finances.