IIPM: 'Descent'ralisation?

The fight for decentralisation and hence, more power in the hands of the state governments, has been a pertinent case for long. For decades, several Indian states have blamed the partisan politics and the bias of the Indian central government for the lack (or stalling)

of development in their respective territories. Therefore, over the years there has been significant devolution of central power in favour of the states. For ministries like panchayati raj, education, agriculture and rural development, while the money has been sanctioned by the respective Central ministries, the onus was definitely lying with the state governments as to how the money given is to be spent in the said financial year. Yet, with the passage of time, it is highly evident that anything controlled and monitored by the Central government has been rightly tackled, thereby, yielding better results. For example, consider the national highways constructed and maintained by the nodal agency called National Highway Authority of India.

The quality and smoothness of these national highways stand in stark contrast to the piteous conditions of the state-owned ones. Also, the conditions of the municipality-managed-city-roads are far from "better". Most of India’s blue chip PSUs like NTPC, ONGC, IOCL BHEL, Nuclear Power Corporation and SAIL, or banks like SBI, Bank of Baroda and Allahabad Bank, or research organisations like DRDO, ISRO, BARC and CSIR are centrally owned. Now, opposing these centrally branded varients are the many inefficiently run state government corporations (barring most Gujarat PSUs) that barely witnessing any profit inflow....Continue