Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar with deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia during the 56th National Development Council meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 22: Chief minister Nitish Kumar joined the bogey of non-Congress ruled states at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting today and launched a frontal attack on the Centre for violating the concept of federal structure.

Nitish blamed the Centre for unilaterally passing legislations without assessing the capacity of backward states like Bihar to bear the burden of implementing the central schemes.

“The disjunct between the administrative ministries enacting central laws even in areas which are primarily in the domain of the states has little relationship with the availability of resources. There is a need to have a re-look on these issues,” he said.

Making use of his skill to fire salvos through sarcasm he ticked off the Centre, particularly Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) that advises the UPA government on key legislations. “In this government, non-governmental bodies seem to have a greater say in framing of legislations,” he remarked, leading to laughter, sources said.

NAC has a number of social activists like Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander, Jean Dreze etc.

Chief ministers of non-Congress-ruled states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh levelled similar charges and called for treating them as equal partners in the development process. Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was particularly scathing as she accused the Centre of treating states like “glorified municipal corporations”.

Nitish was not as harsh as Jayalalithaa but he did suggest in his speech that NDC would become meaningless if it did not take the concerns of specific states into account.

Though Nitish and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi spoke on similar lines they sat wide apart.

Nitish was spotted at the extreme left in the second row while Modi sat on the extreme right in the fifth row. Like Modi, all Congress chief ministers listened attentively when Nitish spoke.

He pointed out that the share of the central plan in the Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) has been growing rapidly at the expense of the share of the state plan which has plunged from 63.52 per cent in the first plan to 24.01 per cent in the 12th plan.

“This militates against the very concept of a federal economy and inclusive development. I would sincerely urge that we should consider reversing this trend by strengthening the roots of our federal structure,” Nitish said.

Nitish used the UPA’s proposed Food Security Bill to focus his attack on the Centre. Sources said he spoke extempore, outside the prepared speech, to point out the faults in the proposed legislation.

Interestingly, the food security bill has been prepared by Sonia Gandhi-led NAC.

He said according to the draft bill, the Centre arrogates to itself the power to decide the number, criteria and schemes, while unilaterally imposing a substantial burden on the state governments. “The proposed bill should take stock of the varying ground realties in states and make adequate financial provisions to meet the gaps,” he said, adding that failure to do so would lead to disillusionment.

He demanded the formation of an independent BPL commission for identification of the beneficiaries of the food security bill, underlining that identification requires specialised knowledge.

Above everything, Nitish favoured cash transfers over targeted public distribution, pointing out the latter was time consuming, cost intensive and fraught with time overruns.

“Cash transfers include lower leakages and minimum implementation cost, greater flexibility for households to choose their consumption baskets and portability for the migrant population,” he said. NAC members are opposed to Nitish’s cash transfer idea.

The chief minister also raised his pet subject for granting special category state status to Bihar, stressing that without it the state cannot attract private investment to catch up with the rest of the country. “The per capita income of Bihar is one-third of the national per capita income and is one-seventh of the per capita income of Delhi. This huge gap is a matter of serious concern and needs to be addressed at the earliest,” he said to support his demand for special status.”

He was extremely critical of central schemes for minorities and said that instead of brick and mortar scheme, it should have skill development so that minorities find employment.