Deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia with chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar at the commission’s meet of five eastern states in Patna on Monday. (PTI)

Bhubaneswar/Patna, May 30: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today demanded before the Planning Commission that Orissa should be declared as “a special category state”.

Naveen, along with chief ministers of five eastern states, is in Patna for a two-day Planning Commission’s meet.

“Orissa is a poor state looking for special category status to get tax holidays and lure private investment,” said Naveen, while supporting Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s contention for more authority to the states to formulate their schemes and implement them.

Naveen also asked the Centre to evolve a national formula for fund mobilisation for investment in infrastructure and other areas in the state.

The chief minister said: “Uniform policy and uniform programmes for the country, as a whole, have produced distorted growth and created inequalities within different parts of it. As a result, regional imbalances have cropped up. The objective of the 12th plan should be to correct these distortions by region-specific interventions.”

Driving his contention home, Naveen said: “Suppose, a particular state has only 50 per cent of the resources to support its particular plan while some other state has 75 per cent of its internal resources for the same, regional imbalance is bound to grow in that event.”

Naveen also argued that the Centre should have better planning and mechanism to deal with Maoists in several states. Moreover, he said Bihar’s proposal to build a road from Bakhtiyarpur to Paradip would benefit several other states that would avail of the link to transport goods to and from Paradip port.

“The proposal should be supported,” he said.

Stating that mining and related industrial activities were very important for Orissa and other eastern states, Naveen said: “Achieving strong growth in these sectors is critical in increasing income and reducing poverty.”

“Mineral-bearing states such as, Orissa, are losing out because of low royalty rates, delayed revision of royalty rates and incorrect method of calculation. The Centre should revise the royalty structure,” he said.

Naveen said there was need for a national policy framework to address problems of displacement of people on account of land acquisition, loss of livelihood and mounting pollution problems.

The chief minister suggested that the Planning Commission’s development approach should focus on scaling up investments in agriculture and allied sectors that need to perform above the national average over a long period of time.

Moreover, the focus should also be on mitigating adverse impacts of natural calamities and other shocks, including climate change, he said.

Accelerating the development of depressed regions and marginalised classes, including Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and women, to substantially reducing regional, social and gender disparities and ensuring inclusive growth should also come under purview of the Planning Commission, Naveen said.