Two crore to sign in favour of special status for Jharkhand

SaTURDAY 17, 2011

VIJAY DEO JHA

The State BJP has reiterated its outstanding demand for the special status for Jharkhand. The party will launch a signature campaign from September 25. About two crore signatures would be collected from across the State which would later be sent to the Central Government.

Chief Minister Arjun Munda, who has been raising this issue at every opportune occasion, would be the first signatory. “It will not be a token protest or humble submission. The protest will gather momentum in the towns and villages of Jharkhand which are the worst victim of the Centre’s apathy,” Munda told The Pioneer.

Powered by the active support of the party rank and file, about two crore signatures would be appended to the petition addressing the Central Government.

“We will target around two crore people out of the 3.31 crore population of Jharkhand for their signatures and active involvement,” State BJP president Dineshananda Goswami said. “We will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the petition,” Goswami added.

The demand for special status is new. Munda may even appear to follow in Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar footsteps who had launched a similar signature campaign a few months back to pressure the Centre.

Noted economist Prof. Ramesh Sharan said that the demand for ‘special status’ for Jharkhand has a solid basis and a history.

“In the days of undivided Bihar, the Jharkhand Autonomous Council was constituted to address the underdevelopment in this area with special economic assistance. There was demand to declare the areas falling under JAC as a Union Territory, which could not happen leading to the creation of Jharkhand as a separate State in 2000. But in terms of development, it has remained underdeveloped in all spheres, thus presenting a strong case for its special status,” he said.

Special status to Jharkhand won’t come easily and the Munda establishment is aware of this fact, experts, however, said. Munda has placed this demand before the Centre and special status for Jharkhand has become a political issue.

“I am merely echoing the public voice that will ring across New Delhi. The Centre will have to pay heed to our demand. We are like a colony of the Centre that exhausts our mineral resources to develop the rest of India,” Munda said.

“As many as 10,500 villages of Jharkhand are extremely backward. We get less royalty on minerals and resources. We own mines and minerals but are forced to beg before the Centre for our own requirements,” he added.

Prof. Sharan, meanwhile, argued in favour of a special package for Jharkhand State.

“If the rest of India is shining, it is due to States like Jharkhand that supplies minerals and other resources. These States are, however, destined to remain undeveloped and face the brunt of displacement and deprivation. Jharkhand receives less allocation from the Finance Commission only because of its higher per capita income while one half of its population lives below poverty line. But nobody bothers to know if the per capita income information is fallacious. Poverty should be the criteria for allocation and Jharkhand at least deserves special package for another 10 years before its socio-economic development gets off the ground,” he said.

The rules for granting special category status - that brings a slew of economic and tax-related relief measures for the States- lie clearly defined by the Planning Commission forming part of the guidelines of the National Development Council. They are usually States with hilly and/or inaccessible terrain, low population density or a sizeable tribal population, strategic location or sharing international borders, economic and infrastructural backwardness and non-viable nature of finances. Eleven States enjoy special status and these include Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and the North-Eastern States.