Gujarat CM counters UPA govt claims, walks away with Rs 59,000 crore

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi took a backseat and allowed his men to settle scores with the Planning Commission regarding the panel’s criticism of Gujarat’s development model, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 19, 2013, 01:25:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi took a backseat and allowed his men to settle scores with the Planning Commission regarding the panel’s criticism of Gujarat’s development model.

Modi even coined a new slogan for development “sabka vikas sabka saath” and remained quiet most of the time.

In earlier annual plan meetings, Modi used to himself counter criticism of his developmental model but this time he watched as his men blamed the panel for wrong interpretation of data, especially on school education, projecting Gujarat in a bad light.

“He (Modi) did not speak much,” a plan panel official said and added that Gujarat’s video presentation had some stark remarks against the central government policies.

At one point, the Centre was accused of playing the big brother in policy making with reference to home ministry’s National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) and claimed that the states were expected to follow suit.

“We find that the propensity of the Centre to create huge administrative and financial responsibilities for the states through the instrument of central legislation is on the rise,” the presentation said, while citing RTE as an example of creating undue financial burden on the state governments.

The presentation also drew attention towards MM Punchhi Commission’s recommendation of the Centre paying for additional expenditure liabilities of the state on account of the implemention of central legislations.

Panel sources agreed with many points raised by Modi on gas pricing, problems in flow of funds to the states to improve irrigation but differed with him on social sector progress. “Benefit of economic growth has not reached the poor especially the scheduled tribes,” a senior functionary said.

Modi thanked the plan panel for approving the plan of Rs 59,000 crore as against the state’s demand of Rs 58,500 crore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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