Hoshiarpur: To ensure overall development of the country, the Centre should "impartially" disburse the taxes collected from states, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Badal on Saturday said.
It is the need of the hour to revise the formula for devolution of Central funds because the states need more funds for their primary developmental needs, Badal told reporters here.
"Rather than discriminating with the states the Union government must impartially disburse the taxes collected from states in order to ensure the overall development of the country," the chief minister said.
He said they had been demanding that the states should be given at least 50 per cent share in taxes collected from them.
"The allocation of funds to the states should in fact be made growth dependent, so as to encourage the states to perform better," he said.
Laying stress on the need for strengthening federalism by increasing devolution of Central funds to states from the present 32 per cent to 50 per cent along with change in the devolution criteria, he said that if more funds were placed at the disposal of the states "an era of unparallelled development
could be heralded in them."
The chief minister said that by giving the central funds the Union government was not doling out anything special to the states, rather it was duty bound to repay back their share from the revenue collected in form of various taxes from the states.
Assailing the Union government for allegedly ignoring the welfare of people "by formulating the policies autocratically without concerning the state governments", Badal said "the tendency of the Central government to usurp the powers of the state governments is very dangerous as it not only violated the fundamental principles of democracy but also weakened the federal structure of the country."
"The result of such discriminatory policies of the Congress is that Punjab, which was once considered as most prosperous and advanced state of the country, is now lagging behind in many sectors," he claimed.
Badal said that as Punjab was serving the needs of the country regarding food grain production so it was the duty of the Union Government to extend special facilities to the state.
PTI
