Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will call an all-party meeting to convince them that the Centre under the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission was doing injustice to Bihar and the devolution of fund to the State would be reduced as compared to the 13th Finance Commission, despite the fact that it would get `50,747 crore in 2015-16 as compared to `36,963 in 2014-15.
Nitish on Monday sharpened his attack on the Centre amid reports that the BJP might take credit for 'higher' devolution of funds during the election and State BJP leaders are claiming that Bihar has got advantageous position and would be a big achiever with Central shares going up from 32 to 42 per cent.
Nitish instead said Bihar will be a loser and pointed out that there was no word on how the losses would be made up because the Backward Region Grant Fund has been closed and there is no assurance from where Bihar would get the special grant that it is entitled to as per the provisions in Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000.
Quoting figures, the CM said Bihar's share in Central taxes was 11.59% during the 11th Finance Commission, 11.3% during the 12th Commission, 10.92% during the 13th Commission and now it has been reduced to 9.66% as per 14th Finance Commission recommendations.
He also highlighted that as compared to other States, the increase in devolution to Bihar was merely 37.3% where for Chhattisgarh it is 93.9%, Jammu & Kashmir 80.6%, Punjab 75.9%, Jharkhand 73.9%, Maharashtra 65%, Haryana 60% and Gujarat 57.4%.
"I request all the parties to rise above party affiliation and think in terms of the interest of Bihar and press the Centre to compensate a loss of Bihar to the tune of `50 to 55,000 crore in five years."
He also urged the Centre to explain what special assistance it would give to Bihar as promised in the Union Budget.
On the contrary BJP leader and former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, who served as Nitish's Finance Minister for eight years, claimed that Bihar would be a gainer in terms of financial devolutions. He also quoted figures to say that Bihar would get `3.81 lakh crore during the 14th Finance Commission for the period of 2015-15 to 2019-20 which would be "double the devolutions during the previous five-year period".
"With the increase in the Central tax devolutions from 32% to 42%, the States will have much more untied funds to use in their own development needs," said Modi.
Nitish, who held the
Janata Darbar on Monday after a gap of almost one year, expressed confidence that the merger process of the
Janata Parivar parties should be accelerated.