New Delhi: A ‘One District, One Product’ policy to promote exports at district level, reducing compliance burden at state level to promote Ease of Doing Business, and pushing agricultural reform by aligning the cropping system to agro-climatic conditions — these are a few highlights of the Narendra Modi government’s new blueprint for India’s growth and development.
These points are expected to be on the agenda when the NITI Aayog’s Governing Council, chaired by Prime Minister Modi, meets on 20 February.
As a prelude to the meeting, which will also be attended by the chief ministers of all states, a preparatory meeting was held last week, in which Principal Secretary to the PM P.K. Mishra, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and its CEO Amitabh Kant, and all the chief secretaries of states participated.
According to sources in the government, the aim of the 20 February meeting will be to get states and the Centre to converge on this blueprint for development. For this to happen, the key will be making India a global manufacturing hub, reimagining agriculture, improving physical infrastructure, accelerating human resource development, improving service delivery at grassroots level, and renewing the focus on health and nutrition.
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Boosting exports at district level
A key point on the agenda for the Governing Council meeting will be to ensure that state governments come on board on the matter of exports.
“It is usually felt that states are not fully on board when it comes to exports, so the idea of promoting exports through district level competition will be explored,” an official said on the condition of anonymity.
“For this, states will be asked to identify exportable products in each district, and competition among districts will be encouraged… What is being envisioned is something like a ‘One district, One Product’ policy,” the official added.
“It is something that has been done in Uttar Pradesh already, and there are examples of countries like Thailand which have become export hubs by identifying and promoting export potential at the local level.”
States could be asked to create an ‘Export Preparedness Index’ at the district level, similar to the NITI Aayog’s index for states. “They will be encouraged to interact more with the Ministry of Commerce to deepen export culture,” the official added.
To promote Ease of Doing Business at the state level, states will be encouraged to reduce compliance burdens, and minimise the cost of doing business by improving logistics and transportation.
In an interview to ThePrint earlier this year, NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar had spoken on the need for states to reduce compliance burdens. “According to some estimates, there are over 63,000 regulatory and compliance requirements if you add up all of the states. The NITI Aayog is working closely with the states to roll back the compliances one by one, just the way the central government did away with its 1,200 redundant laws,” he had said.
A push for agri reforms
‘Reimagining’ agriculture will also form a key aspect of the agenda of the Governing Council meeting. According to sources, aligning the cropping system to the various agro-climatic conditions at the district level, in order to promote optimum resource use, will be stressed upon, and a district level diversification plan will be discussed.
“There are over 140 agro-climatic zones in the country, so it is important to align the farming and agricultural practices with these rather than following a model of growing water-intensive crops even in areas suffering from water scarcity,” another government official said.
An agro-climatic zone (ACZ) has been defined as “a land unit delineated in terms of major climate and growing period, which is climatically suitable for a certain range of crops and cultivars”. Agro-climatic conditions refer to soil types, rainfall, temperature and water availability, which influence the type of vegetation and cropping.
In the same vein, states will be asked to promote diversification towards nutri-cereals, pulses, horticulture, fisheries and animal husbandry. Food processing and promoting agro-based industry and exports will also be discussed.
Officials familiar with the agriculture sector explained that since there is a shift in the demand towards processed, ready-made food, they need to be encouraged at state and district level.
“Not only would this help in further job creation, but will also benefit the MSME sector where packaged products, ethnic and traditional food can be promoted,” an official said. Here too, the one district, one product’ scheme will be encouraged, the official added.
Further, the idea of utilisation of central funds meant for agriculture through competition among states will be discussed.
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Aspirational panchayats
To improve service delivery at the grassroots level, the idea of replicating the ‘Aspirational Districts’ programme at the block and panchayat levels will be discussed.
“Just the way the NITI Aayog came up with the aspirational districts, it is now being felt that states can come up with aspirational panchayats and blocks,” said the second official quoted above. “States can come up with a set of parameters by which they can rank the blocks and panchayats, and then focused attempts can be made at bringing the most backward of them to the state average.”
In addition, the means to promote effective utilisation of digital infrastructure at the local level will be discussed, as will potential apps for end-to-end delivery using this infrastructure.
Health sector
On the health front, the NITI Aayog’s plan for an integrated approach to medicine, which aims to integrate the benefits of modern and traditional systems of medicine like allopathy, homoeopathy and Ayurveda, will be discussed with the states.
Further, increasing expenditure on health through private and public-private partnership projects and improving nutritional outcomes through the government’s POSHAN 2.0 scheme are also on the agenda.
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India’s exports have been stuck in a trough of $ 300 billion for a long time. One is not certain these homely approaches will set the ports on fire.