NEW DELHI: Key economic advisors to Prime Minister Narendra Modi want the Centre to tighten norms for fund flow to states. Deliberations within the PM’s Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC) suggest it’s keen to link fund flow to states with outcomes on social sector developmental indicators following reports that there hadn’t been significant gains in education, health, and drinking water in states in the past few years.
The PM-EAC is likely to hold its fourth meeting on December 20 to evolve a concrete set of recommendations to the PM before the basic contour of the February 1 Budget is finalised. In the last meeting, the PM-EAC had deliberated on the implementation of the 14th Finance Commission report and performances of states, including social sector schemes.
“In place of saying, we have skilled so many people as part of the Skill India scheme, the government needs to migrate to the next level and tie the fund flow to states and institution on the basis of the parameter which should measure how many persons actually got jobs for which they were skilled. We should develop a yardstick to link fund flow to measurable improvement in the quality of delivery of health services in the states,” a part-time member of the panel said..
In further indication that the government is increasingly becoming wary of the conditions of economy, NITI Aayog has revived its annual dialogue with the Development Research Council of China to attract investment in manufacturing. While the third edition was in Beijing on Tuesday, India will host the fourth edition next year.