Patil wants group of progressive states

He mooted this idea during the recently held conference of state finance ministers at the Thiruanantpuram which was called to discuss the strategies while representation the case of states before the 13th finance commission.

Speaking with reporters Patil said, "he received overwhelming response from the progressive states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnatka, Tamilnadu and Kerala and they welcomed the idea".

"We are still evolving the criterias for the admission to this forum and hope to complete the exercise in next three to four months after which the consultation paper will be sent to all the states on the formation of the forum, which will rank the states on the basis of their performance in various fields," he added.  

All the states are free to join the forum,  they will be divided in to four categories, A, B, C, D and this information will be made available on the website to make whole exercise transparent.  And idea is not to create the division but to put pressure on less performing states to improve their performance.

"In fact my idea is to do some hand holding and give encouragement  the states to come from D to C, C to B and B to A",  he claimed.

Just like for admission in the European Union, the country wishing to get admitted has to fulfill certain criteria, the admission to A and B category of states will be based on completion of the norms, he said.

Whether to join the forum or not will be decision of the individual state but as the data about the state which is a member of  the forum will be available to the world at large,  investors, international institutions like World Bank and IMF will tend to favor the  states who are members of forum over those who are not members,  Patil claimed while replying to question.

He also told that progressive states have also agreed to make representation before the 13th finance commission for larger share in the central taxes  as these states are paying the price of their progress.

Despite contributing the larger share to the central tax pool,  large chunk of  central funds are given to backward states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, North Eastern states etc.

But we are strongly going to point out to the commission that, while deciding upon share of each state from central funds, finance commission must take in to account,  performance of the state government for last five years in utilising the funds made available to state from the central pool.

Otherwise with every finance commission, share of progressive states in the central pool is shrinking.  We are not saying that the backward states should not be given larger share, what we are suggesting is that it should be frozen at present level. And the excess amount which will become available from central pool should be given to the progressive states for their progress, he demanded