Address of CM Kamal Nath at session ‘Union of States’ of India Economic Summit in New Delhi

The Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that the various programmes and policies of the Union Government are directly and indirectly affecting development of states. He asserted that the Centre should play a role to encourage states and should increase states’ share in its schemes. CM Kamal Nath was addressing a session’Union of States’ of the India Economic Summit organised under the joint aegis of the World Economic Forum and Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi today. The Chief Minister of Punjab and representatives of Meghalaya, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh participated in the discussion.
On the role of the Central Government in Central-State relations, Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that the role of the Central Government should be encouraging, but unfortunately it is proving to be a hindrance. The share of the states in the Central schemes have come down from 90:10 to 60:40. Due to this, no economic activity is taking place. He said that the role of the Central Government should be to bring forward the capacity of the State Governments because every State is different from each other and every state has its own specialities.
The Chief Minister said that as far as the role of the NITI Aayog is concerned, it is limited to research and formulation of policies. It has no powers, which used to be with the Planning Commission earlier. Regarding GST reforms, CM Kamal Nath described it as ‘Apriya Gatha’, which has not been implemented properly. He said that about three to four hundred amendments have been made in the GST policy so far. Raising questions on the decisions of the GST, CM Nath said that there was no intellectual understanding on this subject. Decisions were pre-determined. The methods to implement it were impracticable, he added.
On the issue of strong urban infrastructure and local governance, Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that India’s urbanisation will be the biggest humanitarian event of the next decade. He called upon the town planners to focus on the basic things to deal with this issue. He said urban areas are developing beyond their capacity. At present, urbanisation is taking place on its own. Sub-urbanisation is the remedy. Policies should be framed in the states to address these issues. CM Nath also expressed concern about the challenges in agriculture. He said now there is a need to find an answer to the problem of preserving the surplus.