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New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) Critical of Centre''s flagship programmes, Kerala today accused the UPA of making state governments "bonded-carriers" of such schemes which are an "encroachment" on its rights. Chief Minister V S Achutanandan said the Centre was bypassing state governments by making available funds for Centrally devised schemes directly to various agencies which "erodes" accountability and sets an "unhealthy" precedent. He said the states have been opposed to the idea of Centrally-sponsored schemes and have demanded instead that the money spent should be handed over to the states to spend in accordance with their own specific requirements, rather than on some uniform "one-size-fits-all" basis. Addressing the National Development Council (NDC) here, he said, the Centre often starts a scheme and gets state governments to fall in line and commit their plan resources to meet their share of the cost. "Then it (Centre) suddenly decides unilaterally to drop the scheme, or to modify the scheme, or to raise the state government''s share in financing it. The state having got involved in a scheme in whose formulation they had no say in the first place are then made responsible for it to ever greater degrees at the whim of the Centre. "They are thus made to act as bonded carriers of Centrally-devised schemes. This is an encroachment on their freedom, a pre-emption of their plan resources against their will and does no good ultimately to social sectors," he said. To buttress his point, Achutanandan cited the increase in states'' share in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Centre''s decision to provide funds only for health infrastructure development under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). "The SSA which began with 15 percent state government contribution in 2001-02 and kept this ratio at 25 percent till 2006-07, has raised it to 35 percent in 2007-08 and 2008-09, 40 percent in 2009-10, 45 percent in 2010-11, and 50 percent in 2011-12," he said. He said the states now find themselves shouldering an ever increasing burden, whose magnitude is determined again by the Centre unilaterally, in a scheme that is not their own and into which they entered in the first place at the insistence of the Centre. The 13th Finance Commission has provided grants to enable states to meet the rise in their obligation but the cognizance of the problem by the Commission only underscores its seriousness, he said. Similarly, he said, Kerala made a number of appointments under NRHM but the Centre has decided to restrict NRHM funds exclusively for health infrastructure and the payment for all appointees has devolved suddenly upon the state exchequer. He also demanded that the Centre must take full responsibility for financing the implementation of Right to Education Act.
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