Thursday, Feb 13, 2003
Thursday, Feb 13, 2003 |
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Kerala
By Our Special Correspondent
In a recent paper, `Emerging South', presented at a talk in Chennai recently, Mr. Ramachandran said constant and detailed consultations were necessary to compare experience, to decide on reforms and complement each other's line of development. "Constant consultations are necessary to deal with intractable and thorny problems like water so that step by step, a culture of mutual discussion and agreement could be built up,'' he said. Mr. Ramachandran said the States' Reorganisation Act had provided for the formation of zonal councils with a wide scope of functions. Section 21 of the Act empowered zonal councils to discuss any matter in which some or all of the States in the council had a common interest. There is also a provision for even joint meetings of zonal councils. ``These councils provided an excellent forum in the years immediately after the States' reorganisation in dealing with matters arising out of re-organisation and connected with the problems of linguistic minorities. The councils met a number of times during the first ten years of its existence, but soon they became defunct. Attempts were made to revive these councils during Indira Gandhi's period. The Southern Zonal Council has met only twice during the last 12 years and for over six years now, no meeting has been held,'' he pointed out. He said the inter-State council, which was formed in the intervening period, has been a non-starter and has not been meeting for several years. Tracing the regional development disparities between South India and other areas, Mr. Ramachandran noted that the development, which was taking place for about nearly four decades, had gradually changed during the last ten years as a result of major changes in development policies since 1991 with the onset of liberalised economy. The change that has since come about coincided with globalisation of world economy. The change is basically from centrally planned command economy or a licensed economy to a more liberal federal market economy. Under it, States have more autonomy and freedom to develop as they like. This flexibility and new autonomy have been used by most of the Southern States to accelerate development, he said. Mr. Ramachandran, tracing the various policy initiatives being taken by the southern States, said the whole world was going to look at South India as a fast growing region, going by the large scale industrial investments. "We have to capitalise on this further and maximise growth to the combined advantage of all southern States and India as a whole. One advantage of a federal market economy is that each State can exploit the autonomy it has in development. The emerging competition can be healthy and cooperative by each State doing what comes naturally to it. Mr. Ramachandran wanted the South Indian States to break the barrier of development not merely in the emerging technologies but by emphasise on comprehensive growth in all sectors--agriculture, manufacturing, and knowledge industry.
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