On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that states should leverage 96% adult enrollment in the Aadhaar programme and use it to reduce Kerosene consumption. Prime Minister Modi praised the speedy efforts of the Karnataka Government for homing in on this and 75% of the subsidy snaps as direct grant to the state. The Congress runs the Government of Karnataka.
PM modi urged others state to follow the Government of Karnataka. Education was the other issue he flagged in securing the cooperation of the states to roll out uniform policies, especially in primary education.
There is no mention about the restructuring of discom debts or UDAY in the PM’s speech at the Inter State Council. The restructuring of discom will have to factor in the issue of power tariff and subsidies.
The speech of PM had copious references to BJP icons including Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Swami Vivekanand and former NDA Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He stayed away feuds with the state like Delhi, Bihar and other which attacks the center for emasculating their powers.
The states have never been as financially empowered as the NDA does for the state today. States now have greater financial resources to utilize in accordance with their requirements. It is 21 per cent higher than the amount received in 2014-2015 by the state from centre in 2015-2016 . Similarly, Urbans Local Bodies and Panchayats will receive Rs 2.87 lakh crore during the 14th Finance Commission’s period.
The rights of states had been kept in mind in the revenue
received from the auction of natural resources, said PM Modi. Auctions of coal blocks will yield Rs 3.35 lakh crore to States in the years to come. Auctions of other mines will yield an additional Rs 18,000 crore to states. The Prime minister Modi said that through the amendments to CAMPA Act, we are attempting to free up about Rs 40,000 crore which are lying idle in the banks for disbursal to States.
PM Modi also talked about the sensitive issue of internal security. He said that we can not strengthen the internal security until we focus on sharing intelligence, equip our police with modern weapon and technology and ensure great coodinatoin among agencies.
