The Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, N K Singh, said today that the full potential of Jharkhands economy is nowhere near realisation.
However, the Commission recognises that the state will require sympathetic cooperation to solve the unique problems of the state.
Addressing the media on the second day of the visit of the Commission to Jharkhand, Singh said, after going through the development in the past 18 years it is clear that full potential of Jharkhands economy is nowhere near realisation.
"Expectations with which the separate state was created 18 years ago, for it becoming a fast growing state and rapidly catching up fast growing economythat expectation remains unrealised, he said.
The Finance Commission chief said the number of the people below the poverty line in absolute terms continues to be alarmingly high.
It is near 27 per cent to 28 per cent with some districts of the state have much higher index of poverty. And this situation has to be changed, he added.
Singh said, we have also noticed that till about 2010/11 there has been a broad adherence to the target of fiscal deficit and other financial indicators of fiscal discipline. Although in the last about three years there has been deterioration on both fiscal deficit and debt.
He, however, added that in the last two years there has been significant improvement in key indices of human resources development in terms of infant mortality and education.
Responding to a question about falling ratio of GSDP to debt and increasing fiscal deficit, he said the immediate cause of the same was the state governments adoption of UDAY scheme under which it had borrowed Rs 5553 crore in the fiscal 2015/16 to replenish the electricity board for the clearance of its dues to different public sectors and other organisations.
Because of UDAY scheme the Jharkhand governments debt in the year 2015/16 stood at 24 per cent of the GSDP and it increased to 26 per cent in the financial year 2016/17, which was about one per cent more than the limit of 25.16 per cent fixed by the 14th Finance Commission.
Responding to a question on the issue of UDAI Bond, he said the UDAY scheme should be implemented. They need to improve on transmission and distribution losses further, to make sure that the UDAY Bond story does not get repeated in the future.
Singh also appreciated the Jharkhand government by saying, We must compliment the government that they are aware of the challenges which faces the economy of the state. They are also aware of (how to) accelerating the growth rate further and (how to) take the growth rate closer to real termsand they know they require much sharper growth.
The Finance Commission Chairman also said that state like Jharkhand has concentration of large number of tribal population.
Nearly 27 per cent of people are tribal, who are very poor and underdeveloped. This is a unique problem of the state and Finance Commission must evolve a method to sympathetically solve it, he said.
Singh said that in the last two days he met the representatives of urban local bodies and rural local bodies like panchayat and Zilla Parisad people and to the surprise of the Finance Commission the women representatives of the rural bodies were extraordinary in the understanding of the issues and their presentations.
He said he also met Chief Minister Raghubar Das and other officials of the state and had meeting all the political parties of the state.
Earlier, the chief minister demanded Rs 1,50,002.73 crore from the 15th Finance Commission in his memorandum before the Commission.
Speaking before the Commission, Das said that after the creation of the state in its 14 formative years the state could not take off properly because of political instability.
But, in the last about three and a half years a stable government has been formed and it is trying its best to create infrastructure and develop the state on the fast track.
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