 "Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu at the 11th Inter-State Council Meeting in New Delhi.")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday utilised the forum of the Inter-state Council for a big push to Aadhaar and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
At the Council, set up in 1990 to discuss Centre-state and inter-state relations, Modi asked the states to use Aadhaar extensively in the implementation of welfare schemes. He said over 102 crore Aadhaar cards have been distributed and have become a symbol of empowerment and Aadhaar’s use has saved thousands of crore of rupees now being used for development.
The PM said the states should use Aadhaar to reduce kerosene consumption and lauded efforts by Karnataka, ruled by rival Congress, on this. Both Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh stressed on the government’s commitment to cooperative federalism. The Council, they pointed out, was meeting after a gap of 10 years.
But the Centre’s recent imposition of central rule in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh cast a shadow on the meeting. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal demanded that states be consulted before a governor is appointed. Others, including representatives of Punjab and Karnataka chief ministers, pointed out how the Centre was legislating on subjects in the Concurrent List without taking the states into confidence.
The Bihar CM demanded that the post of governor be abolished, or at least provisions relating to the appointment of governors must be clearly defined and made transparent. Kejriwal said state governments were being dismissed on “frivolous grounds”. The Delhi CM said allegations of rise in prices of pulses due to hoarding at the Mundra Port should be probed.
Punjab Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, whose Shiromani Akali Dal is an ally of the BJP, accused the Centre of reducing the states to “mere beggars” and “usurping” states’ powers and indulging in a “constitutional rampage” by quietly shifting subjects from the State List to Concurrent List and then to Union List.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee sought formation of a committee headed by the Union Finance Minister to look into the issue of waiver and restructuring of the outstanding loans of the states.
On Aadhaar, she said the state government is of very strong view that linkage of Aadhaar for all direct benefit transfer scheme by December 31, as mandated by the Centre, should be dropped as considerable number of people were yet to get their Aadhaar cards. Banerjee said her government supported the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but the Centre should respect the operational autonomy of the states in fiscal matters. She also criticised the Niti Aayog and said the Planning Commission, its predecessor body, was an important platform for states to discuss their concerns.
The Council had last met in 2006. The agenda for Saturday’s meeting was to discuss retired Chief Justice of India MM Punchhi Commission report on Centre-state relations, Aadhaar and Direct Benefit Transfer, education, and internal security. Government sources pointed that this meeting of the Council covered a wide range of topics, while previous meetings would focus on one or two sectors.
Presentations were made by the Secretary of Inter-State Council Secretariat and the Secretaries of the Departments of Electronics and IT, School Education and Literacy and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The meeting was told the recommendations of the Punchhi Commission, which was set up in 2007, will be first referred to the Standing Committee and with their recommendations be placed before the Council.
On Aadhaar enrolment and using Aadhaar as an identifier for direct benefit transfers, nearly all state governments said they will provide maximum support in completing the enrolment and were setting up DBT cells. However, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik said his government’s model of disbursing pensions through gram panchayats has been more successful, while banking or post office route has thrown up issues of delay and rent seeking.
On education, the consensus was that there should be an improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio and in the training of teachers, improving classroom processes and in the quality of school infrastructure. All these should be achieved in a time-bound manner. The PM called for greater use of technology. Modi also called for dealing with terrorism with an iron hand and better inter-state coordination between police forces.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, represented by her Finance Minister O Paneerselvam, said that the provision in the draft Centre State Investment Agreement (CSIA), which is proposed for effective bilateral investment protection, permitting the Centre to unilaterally deduct any dues from State Governments from the Central Government transfers to States, is “completely unacceptable”.
She also said that she said that the present central government was guilty of indiscriminate resort to the levy of cesses and surcharges, which were not shared with states. It was a sentiment echoed by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as well. He mentioned that the ‘Clean Environment Cess’ of Rs 400 per tonne levied by the centre, which is four times of the royalty earned by the State, is not being shared with the coal bearing states.
Kejriwal tweeted after the meeting that Delhi was still owed Rs 5,000 crore under the Fourteenth Finance Commission.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the state has made a net saving of Rs 445 crore from Aadhaar-linked DBT route for disbursal social welfare benefits and subsidies. Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh asked Centre to grant ‘Green Bonus’ to hill states for maintaining their forest cover.
Apprehending misuse of Aadhaar by illegal immigrants, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal asked the Centre to consider alternative means to provide direct benefits such as subsidies till its coverage is expanded among the three crore population from the current 13 lakh holders.
The Punchhi Commission, set up in 2007 by the Manmohan Singh government, had recommended appointment of governors by a panel which includes the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the concerned state, and that a governor cannot be removed unless he or she has been impeached by the assembly.
The commission gave more than 270 recommendations which included fixing a six-month deadline for the President to clear state legislations, and inhibiting the centre’s prerogative to sign international treaties without consulting the states or Parliament. It also recommended an anti-conversion law and freedom to suo motu deploy central forces in states during emergencies.
(With inputs from Gireesh Babu in Chennai and Aditi Phadnis in New Delhi)
