After Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, now it was Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s turn to hit at the Planning Commission for its ever increasing tendency to dictate terms to states on spending “their own money”.
Only last Friday Mr Modi, it was learnt, questioned minister of state for planning Ashwini Kumar’s assertion that the Centre had given Gujarat `23, 000 crores as part of Central and centrally-sponsored schemes. Sources had revealed that Mr Modi had shot back by asking the plan panel to tell him “how much money the Centre has received as taxes from Gujarat?”.
Taking a step further Ms Jayalalithaa on Monday questioned the utility of the ritualistic annual exercise of finalising the planned budget for the states in consultation with Planning Commission. She said, the exercise appeared to mean that her state being told how to spend its own money.
Though on Friday deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia avoided any response on Mr Modi’s remarks, he, this time, chose to react by saying that these discussions were important because Centre also contributes to the states’ outlays.
Meanwhile, during the meeting between Mr Ahluwalia and Ms Jayalaithaa, it was agreed to have Tamil Nadu’s plan size of `28,000 crores for the year 2012-13, which is 19 percent more than last financial year.
Apparently irked at not getting adequate resources from the Centre, the chief minister not only wondered over the utility of such meetings, she also felt that such meetings amounted to telling the state how to spend its own money. “The outlay of `28,000 crore, the Centre’s contribution was only `3,000 crores,” she asserted.
Later while talking to reporters Ms jayalalithaa said, “We have asked for Central assistance, additional assistance under various heads but that was not forthcoming. So, what this entire exercise amounts to is that we have come all the way to Delhi to have discussion and a meeting with the Union Planning Commission so that they can tell us how to spend our own money.”
However, dismissing the proposition expressed by the chief minister, Mr Ahluwalia said, “These are called annual plan discussions and for the bigger states, most of resources come from the states themselves and Centre gives some funds and then total plan size is approved.” The purpose of the annual discussion is not simply to give money, but to discuss issues, he added.