CPI bats for special category status
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, July 02 2015 :
CPI has urged the NDA Government to restore special category status to all North Eastern States and resolve all inter-State boundary disputes of the North Eastern region.
A draft resolution of a three-day meeting of the CPI National Council held at Chandigarh since June 30 expressed deep concern over the recent withdrawal of special category status of North East States without any reason and asked the NDA Government to restore the special category status to these States so as to enable them to overcome the continuing pathetic economy, financial crunch, lack of modern infrastructure and extreme backwardness.
These resolutions were adopted after considering the agenda moved by CPI Manipur State Secretary Dr M Nara.
The policy to abandon the special category status pursued by the Modi Government is not positive for maintaining a stable and sustainable fiscal environment and a new form of co-operative federalism and competitive federalism for the economically non-viable States.
It is an obvious attempt to suppress the economically non-viable States, reads a draft resolution of the council.
The SCS status was abolished on the recommendation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) which was based on wrong information of development indicators.
Due to the abandonment policy of the SCS, the North East States will suffer heavily.
It may be recalled that the concept of the special category States was first introduced in 1969, when the Fifth Finance Commission (FFC) sought to provide certain disadvantaged States with preferential treatment in the form of Central assistance and tax breaks, said the resolution.
Initially, three States Assam, Nagaland and Jammu & Kashmir were granted special status and there after remaining States of all the North East were included.
The rationale for special status is that these States have inherent poor resource base and cannot mobilize resources for development, observed CPI in the resolution.
The inter-State border disputes appear and reappear frequently with violent activities particularly in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur region that have been seen during the last few years.
Trespassing, building of dwelling houses, Government offices and construction of roads inside the territories of other States by some inhabitants of one State have caused great tensions leading to firing, killing, arsoning, etc, making claims, counterclaims, road blockades and bandhs on the National Highways and at times even confrontation of State police forces against each other.
Citing examples of the incidents that took place in the last few years on the Assam-Nagaland border and the recent episode at Nagaland-Manipur border area, namely the Dzuko Valley dispute, CPI said these instances pitched the people against each other.
Unless the inter-State boundaries are protected and preserved strictly under article 263 of the Constitution of India, there might be escalation of more violent activities in these regions.
Thousands of years old history of Assam, Manipur & Tripura should not be ignored.
Taking all these into consideration, the National Council of Communist Party of India urged the Government of India to immediately look into the matter and take appropriate action in the interests of the Nation.