As the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP clashed in the Assembly on Friday over Uttarakhand incurring staggering losses thanks to the Centre not opening enough its purse strings and the 14th Finance Commission recommendations, the State finance minister Indira Hridayesh announced that she would issue a White Paper on the quantum of the Central assistance and the State’s accumulating losses.
The matter was discussed for around 50 minutes during the Question Hour on the third day of the ongoing Budget session. However, after a while, she was founding dithering. The Opposition remaining unrelenting, the Chief Minister chipped in, saying that the State government would release the White Paper during this session as assured.
Replying to a question raised by the BJP MlA Madan Kaushik about annual plan, saying that the State government had failed to firm up the annual plan after the last for 2014-15 lapsed, the finance minister said that things had turned complicated with the Centre doing away with the Planning Commission and replacing it with Niti Ayog. “The Union government is yet to put into place a new structure, resulting in the allocation of funds for the State under special planned assistance (SPA), special central assistance (SCA), natural central assistance (NCA) and other block grants being inordinately delayed,” she said.
She further said that despite the 14th Finance Commission raising the State’s share by 10 percent - 42 percent in place of the previous 32 percent- the State has incurred a loss of Rs 1500 crore. “The Centre having changed the funding pattern has compounded matters for us. In November 2015, Niti Commission’s sub- committee has given its recommendation. However, the funding pattern the Centre has envisaged is still murky,” she said.
The Opposition, which had remained calm with no pressure being put on the Speaker to consider any motion bypassing the Question Hour, stood out in protest against what the finance minister said. They slammed the State government for resorting to the non-clearance of funds whenever questions were asked regarding the execution of the projects. At this time, the Opposition leader Ajay Bhatt showed a copy which he said he had procured from the Union finance ministry that says that the State would get Rs 25,002 crore in the next five years as per the 14th Finance Commission recommendations. The Chief Minister Harish Rawat who was found laughing in his sleeves over the discomfiture of the finance minister stood to answer the Opposition queries.
MlA Kaushik said that the credit of the State GDP seeing an upswing and per capita income touching off to over Rs 1.5 lakh should go the present CM’s predecessors. But the CM was bent on appropriating the credit all to himself, the BJP MlA said.
Defending his government, CM said that the State would lose Rs 1500 crore per annum by a rough estimate, while pleading his ignorance of copy the leader of the Opposition flaunted in the House. This resulted in the Treasury and Opposition benches exchanging verbal blows. It was at this juncture that the Opposition asked the Treasury bench to come out with a White Paper, detailing the losses the State is supposed to have incurred due to the 14th Finance Commission recommendations. This dare spurred the State finance minister to announce that she would love to bring the White Paper on the Central assistance right in this session.