Naveen Patnaik with Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar/ New Delhi, June 4: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik today urged the Centre to redefine the criteria for according special category status to the state.

“Odisha should be declared as a special category state since its position is much below the level of several special category states. The state satisfies most of the existing criteria except having an international boundary,” he said.

Naveen made the demand during the discussion with the Planning Commission held at New Delhi to finalise the annual plan of Odisha for 2013-14 fiscal. Stating that the state had achieved a 9.14 per cent growth during 2012-13, Naveen said almost all socio-economic development indicators of the state had recorded impressive improvement during the last decade.

Despite these achievements, the state still lags behind other states in terms of per capita income and the extent of poverty. Besides, the state has to grapple with the Maoist problem that is currently has over two-thirds of the state under its impact.

“Therefore, there is need for accelerated efforts and special support from the Centre to gain momentum,” he said.

Official sources said that the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia lauded the special efforts made by the state to improve the socio-economic conditions and in reducing the intra-state disparities.

Appreciating the fiscal consolidation achieved by the state, Ahluwalia said the state had succeeded in creating a comfortable fiscal space, which now allowed it to make higher capital investments.

“We have approved plan size of Rs 21,500 crore for Odisha. Chief minister has raised issues about certain areas where the central government can help, particularly on issues of environmental clearances, which can sometimes affect the pace of development of the state. We have said that we will look into this,” Ahluwalia told reporters after the meeting.

He said the state had shown appreciable progress in the 11th Plan (2007-12), including agriculture, and more efforts are needed to improve basic amenities and address the issue of adverse child sex ratio.        

After the detailed discussion on various programme interventions, the annual plan outlay for 2013-14 was fixed at Rs 21,500 crore.

The state government had proposed an outlay of Rs 21,467 crore for the year as against Rs 15,200 crore fixed for the previous year.

The chief minister demanded that the special plan for the undivided Koraput-Balangir-Kalahandi districts (KBK) be extended by 10 years with enhanced funding to bring equity with other regions.

The other major demands made by the state included a special central assistance of Rs 1,397 crore to facilitate conduct of Nabakalebar (change of idols of Lord Jagannath and his siblings), scheduled in 2015, enhancement of royalty on major minerals, imposition of a mineral resources rent tax at the rate of 50 percent of the surplus rent.

Besides, mining PSUs of coal bearing states such as Odisha should be given the first preference to develop adequate coal reserves and the existing central act be suitably amended to provide for at least 25 per cent power to the host states like Odisha, in line with the hydro-power policy.