How Manipur lost special category status?
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, October 08 2013 : Manipur has lost its status of a special category state in India after the State Government and its bureaucrats submitted false report to the Centre.

Just to please their bosses sitting on the hot seats at Delhi, the State Govt and its bureaucrats submitted fictitious reports making tall claims over successful implementation of many developmental works, which actually never take place on the ground, thus, leading the exclusion.

Loss of special category status would mean that Manipur would no more get the 90% central grant assistance and remaining 10% as loan, which it used to enjoy for taking up developmental projects and schemes in the State.

So, from next fiscal year, all these developmental projects and schemes would be as good as death.

The report of the committee constituted by the Union Finance Ministry to look into the pattern for funding for developmental works in all the 28 Indian States as well as to review the criteria for granting special category status to States has now been submitted to the Government of India.

The committee headed by the former Chief Economic Advisor and now RBI Governor Dr Raghuram Rajan submitted its report on "Evolving a Composite Development Index of States' to the Union Government on 26 September 2013 .

Though Dr Rajan has recommended with doing away with with the special category status criteria altogether, nonetheless, his report has grouped together all the 28 Indian States under three categories namely least developed, less developed and relatively developed depending upon their Multi Dimensional Index (MDI) scores.

Based on the Multi Dimensional Index (MDI) scores, there are 10 least developed States.

They are Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

These States would now be enjoying the special benefits as and when the recommendations of the committee are implemented.

Interestingly, Manipur, which used to be a special category state earlier, has now been included in the second category of States (less developed) along with Nagaland, Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, etc.

As a result, Manipur would no more enjoy the benefit of a special category State.

Instead of the 90 percent Central grant assistance and 10 percent loan that it used to get for taking up developmental works, Manipur would now get only 30 percent Central grant and the remaining has to be either coughed up by itself or taken as loan from the Centre.

The report of the Dr.Raghuram Rajan Committee, which has placed Manipur among the less developed States ahead of other bigger and developed States like Assam, Odisha, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, is based on datas and reports collected/submitted from different departments of the State Government.

In the report submitted by the State Planning Department for the period from 2009-10 to 2013-14, the performance of Manipur in its various sectors like health, agriculture, JNURM, Rural Sanitation, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), etc, have been shown has comparable to other States, though the ground realities is quite different.

When the Government of Manipur has itself claimed that there is self sufficient in food grain production in the State, implementation of MGNREGS is successful, mortality rate among infants has reduced drastically and all the basic necessities like electricity, water, good road and communication facilities, etc are ensured to its people even in the rural areas, then who is Dr Raghuram Rajan to say that Manipur is not developed.

On top of this, the per capital income of the State during 2012-13 has been shown as 10.42 percent at the current price and at the constant price as 5.22 percent.

Moreover, while the gross productive rate of the whole country stood at 4.4 percent only, that of Manipur has been pushed up to 12.57 percent.

But why all these false claims have been made? For garnering a fistful of awards as one of the best performing States of the country, or what else? .

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