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Maharashtra will improve coordination with Centre to get more funds

A senior IAS officer to be tasked with the responsibility for co-ordinating with central ministries for funds and pending permissions for projects and schemes.

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The state government is planning to put in place a formal set up to strengthen co-ordination between it and the Union government, so that Maharashtra gets a larger share of funds for schemes. This will also help Maharashtra negotiate its way through bureaucratic labyrinths, so as to get quicker clearances for its long-pending projects from the Union government.

"The state's follow up with Delhi is poor. As the finance minister, I feel it must improve," finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar told dna. He added that this improved co-ordination would help it lobby for more funds for central schemes, which in turn, would benefit the people.

Mungantiwar plans to task a senior IAS officer with the responsibility for co-ordinating with central ministries for funds and pending permissions for projects and schemes.

Once the system is in place, it will help the Maharashtra government get more funds for schemes, including those in the social sector like National Health Mission (NHM) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA). Moreover, it has been a long-pending grievance of city planners and bureaucrats that the centre sits on crucial approvals for infrastructure projects including environment and Railway permissions.

Mungantiwar said that that while the state had a resident commissioner at Delhi, the problem lay in "all departments trying to co-ordinate separately with the centre. Instead, one officer should handle the co-ordination and submit a weekly report to the chief minister and the finance minister," said Mungantiwar.

The resident commissioner, who is the state's representative in Delhi, and is tasked with liasioning between the state and the centre, will co-ordinate with this official as a single-point entity. "A standard operating procedure (SOP) in this regard must be laid down," Mungantiwar said.

"Last year, we could get just Rs22 crore for the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Program (AIBP) as against some states which secured around Rs500 to 600 crore for the scheme," said Mungantiwar, adding that the Centre had allocated Rs2,000 crore for the state to compensate natural calamity-hit farmers.

He pointed out that states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh had good liasioning with the centre, which benefited them in terms of better share of funds.

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