Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday asked the Centre to encourage fast-growing States such as Telangana by giving tax incentives, if additional devolution of funds linked to performance is not possible as the prosperity of the country lies in the growth of States.
Speaking at the fourth governing council meeting of NITI Aayog held in New Delhi, he also reiterated the suggestion made in the past to link the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to agriculture as part of the need to focus on agriculture and allied activities as an integrated sector.
Mr. Rao said the burden of investment in farming (for farm work) could be reduced at least by half by providing 50% funding from the employment guarantee scheme and meeting the remainder from farmers. Stating that such initiative would also help in doubling farmers' income by 2020 as being planned by the Centre, the Chief Minister requested the Centre to exempt allied areas of agriculture such as dairy, poultry, goat- and sheep-rearing and fisheries from the income tax net.
Harping on cooperative federalism, often talked about by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister wanted more freedom to States in the implementation of schemes in the areas such as health, education, urban development, agriculture and rural development. Instead, the Centre should focus on macro-economic, defence and external affairs issues where the country was facing challenges, he suggested. Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao also utilised the opportunity to share some of the initiatives taken up by Telangana Government, including the recently launched Rythu Bandhu scheme, to provide support to farmers with ₹4,000 per acre per farming season as input assistance, irrespective of their landholding. He explained that all farmers were covered under the scheme since more than 98% of them in Telangana were small and marginal.
Stating that the Rythu Bandhu was introduced after purifying land records and issuing new pattadar passbooks-cum-title deeds with 17 embedded security features to landholder, the Chief Minister stated that it would also facilitate hassle-free land transactions in rural areas by integrating the registration and mutation process.
