From: narayana@oracorp.com (K. T. Narayana)
Subject: Re: Should Indian states need more autonomy?
Organization: ORA Corporation, Ithaca, New York
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:51:00 GMT

In article <3379@creatures.cs.vt.edu> juvvadi@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Ramana R. Juvvadi) writes:
>In article <1992Aug30.202729.519@udel.edu> godura@mercury.cis.udel.edu (Ruchir Godura) writes:
>
>
>
>To sum up, I don't think Kashmir should be treated specially. We need to
>treat all the states equally. I am in favour of autonomy to every state
>including Kashmir.
>
>
>>Ruchir.
>
>Ramana

This is interesting! There is lot of political talk on autonomy,
but no body mentions how much autonomy there is already in
the fedaral framework.

States are allowed to tax and raise revenues! 

States are allowed to spend their own way the moneys acrueing
to them.

States are allowed to police! The federal government does not police
states! It is because the states are thoroughly incompetent in enforcing
the law and order that time and again the center had to step in.

States can enact their own laws with regard to education, curriculum,
and educational practices and instituitions. These are autonomous
rights that the state has. 

What kind of autonomy that people are talking about that is not delivered
in the fedaral constitutional framework! 

When people talk of autonomy, they actually mean political autonomy
alias the breaking of the constitutional link between the center and
the states. When stated without proper substance to the argument,
autonomy demands are a subtle attempts at breaking the union.


Let us look at a state's ability to raise taxes. They can set the 
tax rates for agricultural landholdings, urban real estate and
indeed rural real-estate. At least in AP, the Panchayats can levy
tax on rural real-estate (nonagricultural) and spend the same.
Unfortunately none of the states tax the agricultural sector
adequately. 

There is another argument that is given! The center takes away
the monies and disposes by itself the monies. But the monies that
the center takes away are returned back to the states according to
an agreed formula! Indeed some of the poorer states benifit as
a result of this accomadation. Look at the subsidies on fertilizers!
All of the agricultural states receive (indirectly) these subsidies.
These subsidies are revenues acrueing to the states!

Educational funding (like UGC and the like). Again the investment
on education is ploughed back from the center's kitty into the
state.

Some states which are not adjacent to an enemy territory may
legitimately complain that defense expenditure gets disbursed
unevenly between states. Again one has to look at the broader 
spectrum.  Because some states adjacent to enemy territory receive 
the bulk of the expenditure for frontline installations and the
stationing of personnel, nonfrontline states (like Karnataka, 
Andhrapradesh, to name a few) receive the bulk of the defense 
industrial expenditure. So they are getting back the monies
that the center takes!

I have yet to come across one single state that managed its economy
better than the center's management of the national economy! Don't
tell me Punjab is an example! No actually not. Punjab's success
is in large part attributable to early investment in agricultural
sector (with a short jestation perid). States like Orissa and
Bihar which have rich mineral resources required (and require)
large jestation periods to breakeven on the investment. I think
if you ask a common man on the street "who will you trust?"
the common man will reply that it is the center. All the politicians
that we have in the states are bozos. Like NT Rama Rao dispersing
people's money (at rs 2 kilo of rice) like his grandfather's
property.

just to mention the otherside of the autonomy story!
...kt
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