New Delhi, October 18
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today underlined the need for hammering out a political consensus and convergence of views between the Centre and the states on critical issues pertaining to development and governance.
“The fiscal health of the states has been a matter of much concern to all policy-makers for some time now. The fiscal deficit of the Centre and states together is unacceptably high. It has seriously affected our country’s economic and social development”, Mr Vajpayee said during his opening remarks at the Chief Ministers’ conference on fiscal issues held here.
“Unless we broaden the area of political consensus, and consensus between the Centre and states on critical developmental and governance reforms, the problems that we currently face would get compounded”, the Prime Minister said.
Stating that the gap between people’s expectations and the ability of the system to fulfil them had widened, the Prime Minister urged the Chief Ministers to arrive at a consensus.
Expressing concern at the unacceptably high levels of fiscal deficit in the Centre and the states, the Prime Minister said “it has seriously affected our country’s economic and social development”.
He said today’s meeting was perhaps the first instance of meeting between the Centre and states outside the forum of the National Development Council and the Inter-State Council to discuss matters pertaining to the fiscal situation.
“We had useful conferences on power sector reforms and issues before Indian agriculture in the context of challenges and opportunities presented by the WTO. It is in the same spirit that we are meeting today”, he said.
A meeting of state Finance Ministers was held last month to arrive at a consensus on some major critical issues. “We are meeting today to consider those decisions and adopt them as a national consensus”, he said.
