Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said the proposed body to replace the Planning Commission should ensure fair and equitable resource allocation and respect the principles of Federal polity.
He was speaking at a meeting of Chief Ministers in New Delhi convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hear their views on the restructuring of the planning panel.
“We leave it to the wisdom of the Central Government and to the Prime Minister to frame the structure and processes of the new planning institutional setup. Our stand is that it should ensure just, fair and equitable resource allocation and respect the principles of federal polity,” said Patnaik.
States have witnessed that the distribution of resources has been guided not entirely on merit and necessity and this has caused a serious imbalance in development across States and unsatisfactory performance in human development indicators, he said.
To justify his stand on the Central Government’s neglect, he said while Odisha contributes over Rs 14,000 crore annually or about 1/10 of the total revenue of railways, the State has not received even 20 per cent of the revenue.
Odisha has been demanding the status of a Special Category State and adequate flow of resources to enable the State to catch up with the rest of the developed States,” said Patnaik.