Rediff On The NeT: Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal's panacea for more responsive governance

Streamline resolution of inter-state matters: Bansi Lal

Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal on Saturday urged the Centre to help revamp the system of resolving inter-state matters to speed up functioning.

Speaking at the chief ministers conference, he said public confidence was affected since many inter-state matters had remained unsolved. He cited the case of the Sutlej Yamuna link canal, still incomplete at the Punjab end, in which the Centre too had invested. This neglect led to tremendous national loss in terms of agricultural productivity, especially in food grains, he said and urged the central government to get the project completed through a central agency within the next six months.

He said the administrative system had failed to measure up to the people's expectations, adding that efficiency and effectiveness had deteriorated in the past 20 years while corruption, both at the political and bureacratic levels, had soared.

With increasing awareness, the electorate wanted greater transparency in government functioning and attempts to hide facts from the public were looked at with suspicion, he added.

Bansi Lal supported the suggestion that standards of service and time limits to get a job done should be publicised as part of the government's moral commitment to the citizens.

He urged the prime minister not to compromise on the national agenda on services provided to the public. Public services, he said, could be improved if the state revenues were enhanced by maintaining uniformity in sales tax, stopping states from indulging in unhealthy competition, offering incentives to industries in areas like power supply, irrigation, drinking and water supply.

He said a national consensus on these issues had already been achieved. There was a dire need to evolve mechanism for its effective implementation of these measures, he said.

Stressing the need to provide more financial resources to the states, he said the state governments were being kept under strict regulations with regard to receiving loans from outside sources even though such funds were freely available to private sector.

Even with regard to funding through government channels, a great injustice was being done to us by the finance ministry.

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