New Delhi, June 7: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh lambasted the Planning Commission and the central government for not giving adequate funds to the states to meet their needs and demanded larger share from the central pool for bigger states.

Equating a large state like his with the small one like Haryana was greatly disadvantageous and unjust. Larger states had larger needs and that must be taken care of.

He also demanded increased central assistance for the `accelerated power projects' like the Birsinghpur and Bandhsagar as was done for the `accelerated irrigation projects'. A lower allocation hampered the efforts state was making for infrastructure development. Its efforts to rope in the private sector had yet to meet with much success.

He sought linkage of royalty on minerals with the revision of their prices.He told Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Madhu Dandavate and Prime Minister I K Gujral that the planning process should be decentralised and even districts be allowed to formulate their plans. "At least one-third of the total plan should be allowed to finalised by the district bodies".

Singh told newsmen that he was not happy with the Rs 20,000 crore allocation as it was 25 per cent less than what the state had demanded. The state needed more funds for employment guarantee schemes in the hunger-prone areas adjoining Orissa and Bihar to generate at least 240 days of employment to each person.

He said his state was being penalised for ensuring financial discipline and reduction in expenditure by abolishing 23,000 posts and doing away with 20,000 daily wagers. While other states who had not ensured such discipline, were being given additional allocation, in the case of his state this was being cited as a measure for `reduced needs'. This was highly discriminatory.

He also disagreed with the Gadgil formula and suggested modification for taking care of the size of the state, and parameters like education, health, drinking water should be incorporated in the new formula.

He said that the state lagged behind in most of the human development indicators and did not have access to basic necessities. Infant mortality and unemployment rate was high.

His was putting greater emphasis on increasing agricultural production and productivity of infrastructure and removal of regional disparities. Reviewing the performance of the Eighth Plan, Singh said that the state's expenditure was 84.8 per cent at constant prices. Outlay was 11,000 crore.

The state was expected to utilise central assistance to the extent of 98 per cent in Ninth Plan.

For the Eighth Plan, the state had been able to mobilise 70 per cent of the projected resources on its own. The areas of shortfall were primarily in loans against small savings, contribution of MP ELectricity Board, MPSRTC and state provident fund.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.