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Chief ministers' meet to seek fiscal package from Centre

Chief Ministers of nine states, including Rajasthan, will be meeting in Delhi on June 21 to formulate a common strategy to seek a 'fiscal package' from the central government to improve their deteriorating financial condition.

The chief ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and West Bengal will attend the conclave being arranged by the Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, an official spokesman said in Jaipur on Monday.

They will discuss the financial condition of their respective states which had become precarious after the implementation of Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations. A consensus would be evolved for the demand that the central government share this additional expenditure borne by the states, the spokesman said.

They would discuss steps for improving their financial conditions and seek a fiscal package from the centre to help them come out of the quagmire.

The chief ministers would be meeting at the Rajasthan House in Delhi on June 21 and would jointly go to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to put forward their demand of central package.

In holding the chief ministers' meet, Gehlot is following the path of his predecessor Bhairon Singh Shekhawat of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, who held three such conclaves to get some statutes changed in favour of states.

First such effort was made in 1991when the then chief ministers of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh submitted a joint memorandum to the Prime Minister. The memorandum demanded sharing of proceeds of corporation tax with states, stopping levy of surcharge on income tax and central excise duty, and starting levy of consignment tax, besides other issues.

Later in 1995, the chief ministers of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Gujarat jointly issued a 'Gujarat Declaration' in Gandhinagar repeating their earlier demands and adding the demand of reviewing royalty rates on minerals, petroleum and natural gas every two years and containing inflation.

Then the chief ministers of Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Maharashtra met in Jaipur in 1997 to issue a 'Jaipur Declaration' seeking increased allocation of resources to states in real terms and enhanced share of the gross proceeds of central tax revenue to them.

The Jaipur Declaration also made a demand on the central government to bear the additional burden of the cost of the implementation of Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations for the employees in the states.

While earlier joint representations to the central government been made by chief ministers belonging to non-Congress parties, mainly the BJP, it is reversal of roles this time when the Congress chief ministers are joining hands against the central government.

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