NEW DELHI: Saying that the youth cannot wait for development any longer, Narendra Modi on Saturday asked the states to embark on the reform journey. Speaking at the sixth governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog, the Prime Minister exhorted chief ministers to align state budgets with the union budget, asking them to work on their respective pipeline of infrastructure projects, besides setting up task forces to lessen compliance burdens for the people and businesses.
"Centre and states should work together for the nation's progress...The government has to respect and give due representation to the private sector for economic progress," Modi said.
Modi said private enterprises, which have shown much enthusiasm, should be embraced by the states for faster and accelerated development. “Focus should be on ease of doing business for the international audience,” he said, while making a mention of the liberalization of geospatial data, adding that had it been done a decade earlier “there would have been a Google from India.”
The governing council meeting, coming close on the heels of the union budget, deliberated on a fixed agenda arrived after extensive discussions with state chief secretaries for a week. “It’s important to have policy frameworks and close coordination. The Centre advanced the union budget by a month and state budgets come a few weeks later now, which can be synchronized for multiplier effect,” said the Prime Minister, while stressing the need for states to unveil their own infrastructure pipelines.
Setting the tone for the deliberations, the Prime Minister dwelt at length on India’s bid to become a global manufacturing hub, saying that the states should set up district export promotion council, while identifying one product each for exporting. The Prime Minister said the “nation has shown the mood with an overwhelming endorsement of the union budget.”
Seeking alignment of the district, state and the Centre, Modi, while stressing that mere improvement in the ranking on ease of doing business was not enough, said task forces should be constituted to lessen the compliance burden for the people and obstacles for the private enterprises. He said the Centre weeded out 1,500 redundant laws from the statute book and the states should also identify such obsolete provisions for deletion. “There’s an all round eagerness to push forward with economic development. The youth of the country cannot wait.” The chief ministers listed out measures to address key issues in various spheres, including the economy, health, education and nutrition.
(With PTI inputs)