Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has convened a meeting of all the Chief Ministers in New Delhi on December 7 to discuss the alternative for the Planning Commission which has been abolished after the BJP led NDA government came to power at the Centre.
Mr. Siddaramaiah told The Hindu here that he would be attending the proposed meeting and brief the stand of the State in the meeting. It was his personal view that the Union Government should not scrap the Planning Commission and it should be continued for the planned development of the country, he said.
However, he added that he would consult his Cabinet colleagues, State Planning Board, Planning Department and the Chief Secretary before finalising the State’s stand on the issue.
During the meeting, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that, he would also take up the move by the Union government to curtail some of the flagship programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) Scheme and plead for the continued and increased assistance to these programmes which helped the deprived sections and generated employment avenues for the landless agricultural labourers during the off season.
Brushing aside the Opposition BJP’s demand for bringing out a white paper on the financial situation, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the state’s financial condition was good and the revenue collection was buoyant. As per the latest figures available with him, chief minister who also holds the finance portfolio said that, there was a growth of 15 per cent in the revenue mobilisation till November end when compared to the position in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said that he was confident that the State would reach the financial target fixed for the revenue mobilisation in all the departments and achieve the plan targets without any cut. To a question, He said that uniformly all the departments had witnessed a steady increase in the revenue mobilisation and there was no shortfall in the revenue mobilisation in any of the department.
To another question, Mr. Siddaramaiah categorically stated that the state government would stand by its commitment of providing the required funds and other infrastructure facilities including free land to all the railway projects taken up on cost-sharing basis in the state and there was no truth in the claims of the BJP that the State government had gone back on its assurance to provide funds and land for the cost-sharing projects in the state.
