By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 25, 2015 :

Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik on Monday demanded issue of a White Paper by the Odisha Government on central assistance to the state.

In a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik, the former state Congress president expressed surprise over the silence of the state government and the ruling Biju Janata Dal [BJD] over closure of important central schemes and drastic cut in social sector funding by the Narendra Modi government.

Many centrally- sponsored schemes started by the UPA Government e.g. the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF), the Integrated Action Plan (IAP), the Modernization of Police forces Scheme (MPF) etc have been closed down, Patnaik said.

He also expressed his anguish over an unprecedented cut of nearly 50% in social sector schemes such as Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS), Midday Meal (MDM), Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (SABLA), Food Subsidy, National Health Mission, National Food Security Mission (NFSM), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS).

“These cuts will have extremely adverse impact on the most marginalized sections of our society and development of the state”, he added.

Patnaik rejected the contention of the Central Government that the drastic reduction in central support has been carried out after implementing the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission increasing states’ share of taxes from 32 % to 42 %.

“Finance Commission is a constitutional arrangement for establishing a mandatory formula for devolution of taxes to states and the centre does no favours by implementing the recommendations. Besides, the Finance Commission had not asked for a cut on social sector funding for increasing devolution”, he observed.

The union budget for 2015-2016 has brought down the total transfer of resources from the Centre to States from 6.1 per cent to 5.8 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product [GDP].

“States will get less money on the whole and all these have been done using the rhetoric of ‘cooperative federalism’. Unfortunately the state government has deliberately kept the entire affair opaque to conceal their inability to protest”, he lamented.

The Congress leader in is letter to chief minister sought a white paper explaining the following issues.

(a) How many schemes that have been closed down by the NDA Government ?
(b) How much money will the state lose as a result each year and over the next five years?
(c) Does the state government propose to cover the scope of the closed down schemes by funding them utilizing additional transfer of funds because of the increase in the tax share from 32 % to 42 %?
(d) How much money will be lost by the cuts in the different social sector schemes?
(e) How does the state government propose to make sure that the gap created in the social sector funding by the cuts will be met?
(g) What has been the time frame of flow of funds since the NDA Government came to office and why the state Government has not been protesting?”