Need of Centre and states partnership To be redefined

Need of Centre and states partnership

To be redefined

By Manohar Manoj, Editor, Economy India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi keeps saying that center and states must work in a partnership mode. They should proceed in tandem with each other. It is a very pertinent issue to be discussed profoundly in public domain. The question is that the Prime minister who just before this current post was an administrative head of a state also; if he says like this, this topic becomes more meaningful. Because he has experienced the deadlock situation between center and states as a chief minister first and now as a prime minister that things do not go in right direction as far as coordination between center and states is concerned, that is why he is arguing for such kind of partnership.

            Now the question is, are centre and states really not coordinating, complementing, supplementing and interacting with one another. If this is so, how the system was running up till now in this country. If the interaction between the centre and state  was not there since freedom or since the federal structure of country came in operation, then how they both were working upon till now and if any obstacles were experienced, then why not it were repaired through the constitutional remedies.

            The constitution of India prescribes the rights of centre and states in the seventh schedule(Art. 246) of the constitution. While drafting of constitutional schedule, the constitution makers did not keep this matter in their attention that if the centre and states have governments of separate political parties, in that case how would they interact and associate with one another. Constitution only mentions federal structure of government and their respective duties and power, not their belonging to any political parties.

            Now the Prime Minister Modi is mentioning this topic in context of government at the centre and state if they both belong to different parties.  So in these circumstances the sincerity of interaction and partnership spirit between centre and state get arises. 

            Mr Modi wants the states to become natural follower of the centre's policies rather than showing their rival spirit to it. But Mr. Modi's picking of word Partnership is very friendly word and absolutely non offending in nature. But the need of the system says that there should be a smooth hierarchy of power distributed and adjusted between centre and states. But I think the division of power between centre and states and also between state and local bodies must be based on ground realities and its convenience of implementation. No doubt we foresee overlapping in many schemes, repetition of process, duality of decision making, non clarity over fund sharing and delay in the reimbursement of funds by the center to the states.

            In reality, both centre and states are not ready to leave aside their authority and make their focus over core issue, which is the implementation of various schemes and make the its end result get grounded. Many times decision got delayed, states’ legislations lying in pending stage before the central government. However, these things get happen mostly when there become two different party governments at both centre and the particular state. It has been evident in the past when the both center and state have same party government and then centre keeps giving preference to that state.

            The neutral observers could find this fact that up till the NDA Govt. under the leadership of A B Vajpayee came at the centre, more or less same policy was adopted by central government with their states counterpart. But Vajpayee govt. started to take states favoring decisions irrespective of state's ruling party and its leader they treated all states in a uniform manner.

            In the UPA-1 and UPA-2 the negligence with the states was not like pre 1990 congress era, but on selective terms UPA govt. sometime cooperated with the states and sometime making politics over that. The fact is that the party system or say the multi party democracy have somewhat ruined the federal spirit of the governance, because most of centre ruling govt. first and foremost wants their own party rule in the states also. In order to this they help those states in out of way manner, where their party is ruling and the election is about to held there.

            In case of those states ruled by the smaller parties, it has been seen, for garnering the favor of central government they start supporting the central government. These kinds of politics between centre and the states have brought many governance agenda on the backburner. Mr. Modi has quietly understood this fact and so he is talking on this. But the question is that merely the showing of gesture by Prime Minister Modi would really help this bilateral cause of centre and states in the country. Until unless our constitution would provide a full level playing field for both the centre and states, this issue cannot be streamlined in order to bring better governance on all front of three tier governing structure of the country.

            We need faster decisions, quick process, smooth implementation, convenient administration and better delivery mechanism over the ground level, which require a clear cut division of power hierarchy. In these circumstances we need a clear cut centre-state relationship dichotomy above the petty party politics. Some issues are really needed to rethink and reviewed constitutionally.

 The allegations and counter allegation made by centre and states to one another are up to the mark, to some extent it is true also. Center alleges that states' machinery is not very sincere and capable, whereas state alleges that centre is treating step motherly or it works in a political vendetta manner. But beyond this it is also true that our constitution has made our states more dependable organs over the center.

            We know India is a federal country, but we should also know this fact that we are not a federal state like US. In our constitution, centre has been made more powerful because our constitution maker were more concerned with the unity and integrity of the country, that is why they made centre more powerful. But the question is, in case of internal security and protecting aggression from the outside, strong center is always alright. But for accelerating the development process, disabling the states in becoming self sustainable rather more dependable over the centre is beyond the logic.

            Because, the jurisdiction of subject confiscated for the center, state and concurrent list is very repetitive in itself and also confusing on many fronts. For example subject like defense, banking, money-circulation, foreign affairs, Railways, communications, petroleum are the subjects exclusively with the center. But the subject like land resource, agriculture, water resource, education and health which are purely the state subjects, but centre also talks about these subjects and also ministries have been formed over these by the centre. We have innumerable centre sponsored schemes made for these subjects also. It is said that centre makes guideline and policy of these subjects and gives financial help over these subjects to the states. So in India we are witnessing overlapping of program and schemes between centre and states. Even during the election our public does not know on which ground they will vote state government and over what criteria of performance they will vote central government. Though, our voters have started to understand the choice of their party for both the central and state government. But ultimately they do not know towards which areas their state government is liable and which areas their center govt. is liable.  after Prime minister's clarion call over the center and state partnership, it is high time when whole country should be properly communicated and thoroughly acknowledged about the clear and appropriate demarcation of all three tier governance areas, so that people can properly judge the performance of both central and their respective state governments in proper manner.Even the mass media at large cannot differentiate these issues between center and the states. Up till now, on the issue of governance people have mixed opinion. Sometime people make centre government responsible for their plight and sometime they make their state government responsible for. But the fact is that all three tier governments have their separate role as far as governance is concerned. But ultimately it is the state government, which has to implement all schemes and programs and beyond that, it is actually the lower level of administration and third tier of governance, which starts from district administration takes the call of all implementation. So in these circumstances it is very necessary to make our whole federal structure comprised of all three tier of governance, completely smooth, hassle free and having straight reaching modus operandi. In this context if Modi government says that in dealing with foreign issues or neighbor issues, the concerned border states would be also taken into account. This decision shows that the ground reality cannot be ignored in dealing with any subject whether related with center, state or local administration. In conclusion, we can say the proper balancing of power between all three tiers is very necessary. We require to give our second look over the financial rights of state and local administration. It is very sad that on most of the issues states have to depend over centre's contribution, because our constitution do not allow states to raise their revenue other than VAT, land revenue, excise over liquor and some limited entertainment taxes otherwise they have to depend over the recommendations of finance commission. In major central sponsored schemes like MGNREGA, IAY, PMGSY, SJRY states get central share only when they have fund to share with them. We have given centre the power to impose taxes like Income tax, corporation tax, customs and excise, but it is ultimately shared with states. Actually it becomes two way  process which takes time and lengthier process of transfering resoruces . Prime minister Modi can at least think over transfering the right of imposing various services tax from center to the states, because goods and services are predominantly the states subject. If he clarifies all the bottlenecks and obstacles between centre and states, then his initiative will have a more fruitful destination.