Chief Minster Harish Rawat stressed on mobilising the State’s own resources optimally in view of the Centre’s indifferent attitude towards the State’s development and the extra burden likely to be imposed on the State by the upcoming 7th Finance Commission recommendation. “To discuss the deepening crisis, we have had marathon meeting of policy planning group (PPG) on Monday.
Although we had two- point agenda for this second meeting- PPG i.e. resource mobilisation and tourism- we could not have taken up tourism as we remained engrossed in the issue of resource mobilisation to tide over the impending crisis,” CM said after the meeting was over. All committees have been given deadline to complete their work before the third PPG meeting, which is scheduled in October this year.
“Since inception of Uttarakhand, State GSDP has been increasing. But it needs to be associated with employment generation. We have to give emphasis on man power with the focus being trained on the 15-35 age group or 35-50 age group,” he said.
Taking umbrage at the Centre, CM said the development requirements of the central Himalayan States like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are being ignored by the Centre.
“Our contribution in fruit production is quite good. But they are giving this a short shrift. Most of the speakers vociferously slammed the Centre for the division of share between State and the Union government regarding development projects as per the 14th Finance Commission recommendation. This amounts to a sheer punishment for Uttarkhand, a State which has done better in matters of fiscal management,” he said.
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