Last Modified: Sat, Jul 16 2016. 10 05 PM IST
Narendra Modi reiterates commitment to cooperative federalism with the union and state governments working as a team for the development of the country
File photo. PM Narendra Modi urged chief ministers to share intelligence with central agencies and to coordinate among state police departments in view of the threats India faces vis-a-vis terrorism. Photo: Bloomberg
New Delhi: Internal security, effective implementation of direct benefit transfers to the poor through Aadhaar, improving the quality of education using technology and building stronger centre-state relations dominated Saturday’s inter-state council meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers which met for the first time in a decade.
In his closing remarks, Modi urged chief ministers to share intelligence with central agencies and to coordinate among state police departments in view of the threats India faces vis-a-vis terrorism.
“Terrorism should be put down with an iron hand,” an official statement from the home ministry said after the conclusion of the talks, quoting Modi. It said that the prime minister emphasized the need for smart policing and the training required including in tackling cyber crimes.
A person familiar with Saturday’s meeting said “the Council discussed the importance of maintaining internal security by better intelligence sharing between the States and Central agencies....The need for modernizing the police force with better equipment and training was also emphasized.”
On Aadhaar, state representatives assured Modi full support in completing enrollment for the programme and in setting up special cells to promote its use in directly transferring state benefits to the poor. Modi asked his officials to collect data from states on the extent of savings achieved in curbing subsidy leakage on account of using Aadhaar linked benefits transfer.
The council decided that recommendations of justice M.M. Punchhi, retired chief justice of India, on centre-state relations will be taken forward for implementation.
Modi also urged states to reduce consumption of kerosene, in light of the higher number of LPG cylinders being distributed and improvements in village lighting. He promised to transfer three-fourth of the subsidy savings from reduced kerosene usage to states. “The government of Karnataka, while moving swiftly on this initiative, has sent its proposal to the Petroleum Ministry. This has been accepted and the grant has been disbursed to the state government,” said Modi. If all states reduce kerosene consumption by 25%, they can receive about Rs.1,600 crore as grant this year, the prime minister said.
Saturday’s inter-state council meeting had many firsts, said the person cited above.
“Notable among them is that, for the first time a meeting of the Inter-State Council has covered a wide ranging topics of common interest to the Centre and the States. Previously Inter-State Council meetings focused on just one or two sectors. It is also important to add here that this meeting has been held after a gap of 10 years.”
Besides remarks from the prime minister and the participating chief ministers, there were also presentations by secretaries of the Departments of Electronics and IT, School Education and Literacy and the ministry of home affairs.
“The consensus view that emerged in the Council with regard to improving the quality of education and learning outcomes was that there has to be an improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio and in the training of teachers,” the person cited above said.
“Besides, focus also needs to be there on improving classroom processes and in the quality of school infrastructure. All these should be achieved in a time-bound manner,” the person said.
The prime minister said that “in addition focus on the quality of education and learning outcomes also. Technology can greatly help in this. We should proactively take steps to bridge the disparities in the standards between the better endowed and poorly endowed schools,” the person cited above quoted the prime minister as saying.
Earlier, inaugurating the inter-state council meeting on Saturday, Modi reiterated his commitment to cooperative federalism with the union and state governments working as a team for the development of the country.
Modi said that the meeting was beneficial because it not only helps improve relations between states but also centre-state relations.
“There are not many opportunities when leaders of union government and state governments are able to meet. This meeting is to strengthen cooperative federalism. The meeting will not only help formulations of policies, it will also help in execution of those policies. I hope the discussion will be with an open mind,” said Modi.
Modi quoted former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and said that debate, deliberation and discussion can help in the development of the country and also to focus on formulation and execution of policy decisions taken by the union and state governments.
“Development is possible only if centre and state governments work together for the country. Any government may not be able to work alone. The meeting of the inter-state council has not been held since 2006 and I happy that home minister Rajnath Singh has called this meeting,” Modi said.
“The meeting is an attempt to ensure that union and state governments hold debate and discussion to serve the people better and provide a secure future to the people of the country,” Modi added.
The inter-state meeting comes exactly two days before the start of the monsoon session of Parliament where the government is keen to push its reform agenda forward. Senior leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have been meeting Congress leaders to build a consensus on the passage of the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the goods and services tax (GST).
