PHD Chamber has called for setting up of Standing Committees of State Secretaries to push forward the concept of Northern India Common Economy (NICE) in the area like power, skill development, e-governance, taxation and provision for drinking water.
While briefing the press today on the initiatives of PHD Chamber in promoting NICE and the major objectives of its forthcoming Summit of Chief Secretaries’, Dr. L K Malhotra, President, PHD Chamber said “the sooner we put in place an empowered committee to oversee the implementation of NICE the better since a policy consensus cutting across States is crucial to accelerate the tempo of development amongst the States. PHD Chamber has empirically proved the advantages of NICE and how the States in the region can cooperate to improve their development tempo rather than pursuing stand alone development agenda.”
The States which are part of NICE are Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh
As a part of the ongoing dialogue on NICE, PHD Chamber is organizing Chief Secretaries’ Summit on 18th October 2008 in New Delhi. To be inaugurated by Mr. T K A Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, the Summit will be attended by Chief Secretaries of Northern India States, industry etc and will discuss on two important subjects that is thrust on skill development and augmentation of power generation.
Importantly, the Chamber has set a task force on skill development as a follow up to the Chief Ministers’ Conclave on ‘Promoting North Indian Common Economy’ in Chandigarh in September 2006 inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. The objective of the task force was to improve vocational training and facilitative massive skill development in the country. It also focuses on measures to promote higher education-university as well as technical education- and promoting research in these institutions. The overall idea is to leverage the demographic advantage of India to create the right type of manpower for the Indian industry and also to create a manpower reservoir catering to the global market.
Regarding the power sector reforms the PHD Chamber suggests a number of reforms like distribution privatization, private sector partnership in hydro power generation etc. The is also a strong case of developing storage based hydro power projects which provide water for drinking and irrigation apart from generating power. The development of power sector also requires a vibrant power market, an efficient power grid, large transmission capacity both inter-regional /inter-state and intra-states to connect generating areas with consumption centres.
Referring to the initiatives taken by the PHD Chamber for promoting NICE, Dr. Malhotra observed that many useful policy papers on NICE, such as removal of inter-state trade barriers, North versus the Rest etc and separate investment guides on states in the region mapping their potentials and challenges etc. have been brought out in the last few years. The Chamber also organized interfaces with the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, Chief Secretaries, Power Secretaries etc to spread the message of NICE.
Dr. Malhotra briefed about the views of the Chamber about present unsettling economic situation in the country and the recommendations to the Government for correcting the same.
He said that it would be incorrect to say that the Indian economy is isolated from what is happening in USA and Europe. “Our regulatory mechanism may be strong and yet with our international trade hovering around of 300 billion dollars and very significant inward and outward FDI and FII, we are definitely affected seriously”, he added.
The need of the hour is for the Government to take very special confidence building measures for the industry, particularly for sectors like infrastructure, agriculture and exports which are so far doing well, to ensure that they continue to perform. Some of the specific steps he suggested were :
- Further reduction in CRR
- Reduction of VAT across border, by 2%
- Re-introduction of investment allowance to encourage greater capital investment
- Reduction in corporate tax to 20%
- Another voluntary disclosure income scheme
Dr. Malhotra added that the Chamber was not suggesting these measures on a permanent basis. “We recommend these, like various kinds of cess imposed by the Government, as temporary measures for an year or two to protect the Indian Industry and to ensure that the rate of economic growth does not slow down”, he added.
