Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje has suggested that special circumstances and the basic facts like total area, geographical conditions, availability of natural resources, conditions of drought or famine, cost of service availability in a state should be considered while deciding standards for central financial assistance. Also, the budget allocation process should be fully transparent, she said.

Smt. Raje was addressing the second meeting of the Chief Ministerial sub-group of NITI Aayog to propose suggestions in regard to centrally-sponsored schemes. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shri Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who is the convener of the sub-group; Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Shri Arvind Pangaria also attended the meeting. The CMs of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand etc and the Finance Minister of Jammu-Kashmir also presented their views during the meeting.

The CM expressed her gratitude to the Prime Minister for increasing the allocation to the states from the centre by 10 percent and suggested to ensure that amounts received by the states should not be decreased as per the Finance Commission recommendations. She demanded for giving rights to the states, including Rajasthan, to prepare schemes as per special circumstances of the states and their local needs.

Smt. Raje argued for reducing the number of centrally-sponsored schemes to 10, while continuing the schemes of national importance like education, health, employment etc. She suggested for similar ‘funding pattern’ across the country for implementing these schemes and said that entire funding of the rights-based centrally-sponsored schemes should be from the centre. For rest of the schemes the funding ratio of the centre and the states should be 75:25, she added. She further said that for better and effective implementation of the schemes, funds from the centre be released in two installments in April and September, instead of doing it at the year end.

The Chief Minister suggested to use the Chief Minsiters’ sub-group in the NITI Aayog as a platform for taking states’ support while preparing some new scheme of national importance or making changes in the ‘sharing pattern and objectives’ of the already running schemes. Also, the annual work plan for implementation of the centrally-sponsored schemes should be left at disposal of the states fully.

Discussing the ‘Menu Approach’ Smt. Raje said that all the states should be given the right of selecting the centrally-sponsored schemes as per their interests, so that these could resolves their own issues of development. She suggested for dividing the scheme formation into three categories for some particular regions. One category should be of the schemes for all the states; while the second should be schemes for groups of states like the North-eastern states. A third category could be of the schemes specially designed for a particular state like Ladali or Lakshmi Yojana.

In the meeting, the CM argued for the centre and the states coming together for development. She also suggested for ending the distinction between ‘plan’ and ‘non-plan’ heads of budget allocation. Smt. Raje said that the NITI Aayog should work as a giant encyclopedia of knowledge where a huge database is developed for the states and this commission should encourage healthy competition between the states without any partiality.

Chief Secretary Shri C.S. Rajan and Secretary Planning Shri Akhil Arora were present in the meeting.

New Delhi/Jaipur, April 27 2015