Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said he is hoping that the GDP growth will be at least six per cent or there will be greater unemployment and general unrest.

However, “Before we are concerned about the state of the economy, we should be concerned about the state of the people who are not concerned about the state of the economy,” he added.

Referring to Uttar Pradesh, Chidambaram said the State added 40 per cent to its total debt this year and 38 per cent of the State is poor, yet the people voted back the same government with a huge majority.

Chidambaram lamented not many people seem to be concerned about the State of economy.

He was addressing the “National Economy Conclave” organised by the Samruddha Bharat Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies here on Friday.

‘Lack of concern’

“Very few people are concerned about the massive unemployment, the lack of infrastructure, the poor quality of education and health infrastructure and yet they seem to be happy. There is no revolt and much lesser revolution. There are no massive gatherings protesting outside the houses of Prime Minister or Chief Ministers. It is almost impossible to mobilise a large protest against the Government policy,” he said.

‘Govt aggregating power’

Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister, said the country is increasingly being exploited by people who are unable to deliver results and those who are keen on aggregating powers. He said there is excessive amount of authority with the Union. He said there is great disparity between best and the worst States in the country.

“The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) was greatest champion of federalism when he was Gujarat CM. He has suddenly turned out to be the direct antithesis of every word he said when he was Chief Minister,” he charged.

The Centre is putting its hands into everything from ports to dams to taxation. “In every way, they want to aggregate as much power as they can into to their hands. But what we see at the macro level is continuous years of decline in jobs, huge problems created by demonetisation compounded by an untested GST that requires hundreds of amendments. Then a national lockdown without any science, without any assessment and without notice. There’s a direct relationship between bad policy and bad outcome,” he added.

Kerala Finance Minister, KN Balagopal said a collective of State governments is necessary to ensure co-operative federalism. An alternative to Centre’s policies must be projected to win over credibility among the people.

Collective of States

“The States can collectively campaign for specific demands from the Union Government in the case of resource transfer. One, to argue for a flexible pool. This pool of resources could be transferred to those States that achieved social development including demographic transition. Two, the Union Government has to recognise the diversity in needs of its regional governments. The States have to be given freedom to formulate state-specific projects,” he added.

He said the GST compensation has to be extended for next five years.

“The huge share of cess and surcharges especially on petrol and diesel and use of Article 271, to make such levies, has to be reduced to a large extent in order to check the price hike,” he added.

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