‘Finance Commission is exceedingly sympathetic to needs of Nagaland’

Our Correspondent Kohima, Nov. 28 (EMN): The 15th Finance Commission (FC) led by its chairman Nand Kishore Singh has said that the commission was ‘exceedingly sympathetic’ to needs, requirements and compulsions, the opportunities, and challenges of Nagaland. The team is currently in the state's capital Kohima holding separate interactive meetings with various stakeholders of the society. Speaking to the reporters after a series of interactive meetings with the government, civil society, business and political bodies, the commission’s chairman announced that the visiting team had ‘full and very rich discussions’ with various stakeholders and a detailed interaction with the state government, wherein the latter presented a memorandum to the 15th FC detailing its expectations from the award and recommendations of the FC for the period 2020-25. He said the content of the state government’s memorandum was very rich and the analysis very persuasive but the commission sought some clarifications from the government on the liabilities and unpaid arrears. “This (15th) Finance Commission would like to take a very positive, sympathetic and innovative approach to fostering the development of the economy of Nagaland. The people of the state have immeasurable talent; its young population can make an enormous difference not only to Nagaland but India’s economic development with the rich cultural diversity,” Singh stated. He informed that a thorough discussion and further consultations within the commission need to be done before the totality of the state’s demands, in the light of the supplementary memorandum which is expected by January 2019, before they could arrive to any conclusion or form their recommendations for the state. In a broad spectrum, the commission while acknowledging the heterogeneity of the Naga society, conveyed that it was impressed by the great strides that Nagaland has made on several important critical parameters, including the many indices on human development, the rates of literacy and infant mortality, where the state figured significantly above the national average. “In terms of per capita income too, it does not compare unfavourably. The initiatives taken by successive governments of the state had enabled the comparative advantage of Nagaland...,” Singh told journalists. The team also informed that they felt Nagaland has made great strides in the area of horticulture and resource communitisation through the village councils and the village development boards (VDBs) which is unique to the state. “We recognise that 75% of the area of Nagaland is under forest cover...quite a large percentage in dense forest contributing greatly to the national carbon sink and the contribution of Nagaland towards the environmental, ecological-friendly approach towards contributing to reducing the fossil fuel footprints is commendable and needs to be recognised suitably,” Singh asserted. He said, to harness the advantages that Nagaland has, the most important thrust areas were to increase connectivity, both air and road; and tourism. “Tourism has a huge potential in Nagaland but to make it thrive would require improvement of road, rail and air connectivity. These areas rightly deserve encouragement and support. The priorities of the state government in this regard are appropriate and needs to be supported,” the commission chair stated. It is in this context that the state government made four types of proposals -- what was presented to be the post devolution revenue deficit grants -- INR 74,000 cr for the revenue deficit grants, INR 7,212 cr for critical infrastructure, INR 1,700 cr for village councils and urban bodies, INR 1,040 cr for disaster management, totalling over INR 80,000 cr in addition to critical connectivity projects, Singh pointed out. He also felt that the request for national institutes, particularly management, engineering and medical colleges that almost every state has, is a legitimate aspiration to be able to harness a huge potential of the young population of Nagaland. He acknowledged that Nagaland has shown signs of improvement in GST realisation and the state’s own revenue as part of the overall expenditure needs this recent momentum to be sustained over the coming five years (2020-25) and with an improved GST performance and revenue realisation would be of great advantage. Regarding the decline of power economy in the state, Singh said this needed priority action. Bringing down transmission and distribution losses, improving billing cycles and improving collection, bridging the gap between the cost at which the power is purchased and the cost at which it is sold, and the losses therein need to be reined in because it can otherwise become a major haemorrhage for the state’s economy. Towards this end, the commission encouraged the state to consider renewable energy, particularly solar energy, because solar panels cost have come down significantly, and in the new tende,r which had been floated centrally for large solar units, the cost of solar power is now almost turning out to be as comparative as the cost of fossil fuel power. A better balance between the traditional sources of power of fossil fuel and non-traditional sources, renewable in terms of solar and wind energy would be a very important and positive multiplier, it stated. In terms of the revenue deficit grant, Singh reiterated that the commission would want to have a closer look at the figures and the additional data was expected from the state government by the end of January 2019. Similarly, in respect of the state-specific grants on which the state government has sought some assistance, he pointed out the unresolved issue with the urban local bodies given the sensitivity of the state. But the state’s cabinet sub-committee is expected to be in a position to find a suitable resolution so that the fund granted by the 14th FC can be utilised and also lay the foundation for the 15th FC towards further development of the urban towns of the state. “In a broad sense, the commission is going back sanguine and enthused by the initiatives of the state government and by the development matrix which is currently on the go. We believe that these development initiatives have high priority and deserve fullest encouragement and support. It will be the endeavour of this FC to encourage and fully support the innovative measures which are currently underway to accelerate the growth momentum of the state’s economy which can improve the per capita income more significantly and can enable in harnessing the multiple comparative endowments that Nagaland has,” the FC chairman stated. On a lighter vein, the chairman of the commission remarked that the 15th FC to Nagaland was considered as a ‘different kind’ and was coined with the name ‘FFC-XV’, which stood for ‘friendly 15th finance commission.’