New Delhi, January 6: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairing the ongoing second national conference of chief secretaries, official sources on Friday said the government has heralded a “new era of cooperative federalism” by making the process of policy making and implementation more collaborative and consultative.
The chief secretaries conference is aimed at rapid and sustained economic growth in partnership with states in coordination as the prime minister believes that this is an essential pillar for the development and progress of new India, they said.
With this vision in mind, Modi had conceptualised this conference, which was held for the first time last year in Dharamshala, they noted and cited several pro- grammes and instances in which he has tried to leverage cooperative federalism.
The Centre and states have been working together in “Aspirational Districts Programme”, launched by Modi in January 2018 to fast-track development in most backward districts across the country through the convergence of government programmes and schemes.
The Modi government has also worked to increase states’ share in divisible pool of tax resources, the sources said. Having been a chief minister for close to 13 years himself, Modi knows that the key to development for states is availability of sufficient resources.
Taking a significant step in this direction, his government took the decision to increase states’ share in the divisible pool of taxes from 32 per cent to 42 per cent. This has provided them more
resources to design and implement programmes as per their needs, they said. Another example is the GST Council where both the Centre and states are partners in decision-making. The workings of the council is an example of fiscal federalism with reliance on decision making through consensus, they said.
Modi has also initiated the unique concept of Pragati, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based multi-modal platform for “Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation” (Pragati), involving the Centre and states.
The unique initiative brings the highest officials of central government (secretary), state government (chief Secretary) and other officials on one table along with the prime minister, all working together to improve the implementation timelines of various government programmes and schemes.
The whole exercise is designed to provide fillip to the spirit of cooperative federalism, the sources said.
They noted that Prime Ministers used to attend annual DGP conferences but over the years it had become “routine” and involved their mostly “symbolic” presence.
