Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Saturday called upon the Centre to rise above politics for speedier development of backward states and stressed the need in the 12th Plan to bring the “downtrodden” into the mainstream of growth. She referred to the affidavit of the Planning Commission in the Supreme Court on poverty line and said that “such an exercise should not be so designed as to underestimate the real magnitude of poverty”.
The speech of Ms Mayawati, who does not attend the meeting of National Development Council (NDC), was read out by state finance minister Lalji Verma. The chief minister noted that the objectives of inclusive growth could not be fully met during the 11th Five-Year Plan.
Ms Mayawati made it a point to mention that the approach paper of the Planning Commission on the 12th Plan does not seem to reflect all the suggestions made by the states at regional consultation meetings.
Referring to the ongoing Socio-Economic Caste Survey, she said that there should be no prior cap on the number of below poverty line (BPL) families when the survey to identify such families is underway. The survey based on exclusion and inclusion factors would give data to the state governments, who in turn will identify them as BPL or otherwise but there would be a cap on number of BPL families in a state. She also complained of delay in clearance to projects like Taj International Airport, Kushinagar International Airport (near the Nepal border), Ganga Expressway and the Upper Ganga Canal Expressway.
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Nitish: food bill will add to woes
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, Oct. 22
Even as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee sought cooperation from state governments on the proposed Food Security Bill, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said that the legislation would add to financial problems of states.
Mr Kumar, in his speech at the National Development Council (NDC), explained that the overriding negative feature of the draft Food Security Bill is that the Central government arrogates to itself power to decide the number, criteria and schemes, while unilaterally imposing a substantial financial burden on the state government.
He remarked that the bill would pass on the state governments huge financial burden. Deputy Bihar chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi also rued the fact that there is no clarity on how the numbers of people in the “priority” and “general” would be decided who would have entitlements for foodgrains under the proposed legislation.
Union minister of state for food and consumer affairs K.V. Thomas, however, said irrespective of the Food Security Bill the state governments would have to modernise the PDS.
public distribution system (PDS). He reasoned that the state governments would have to improve the distributory network of the foodgrains even in the existing arrangement.