Mamata skips CMs meet, says NDC should take over

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who skipped the all-CMs meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the restructuring of the Planning Commission, in a letter to the PM has suggested that , “instead of setting up a new body through executive fiat, it may be more appropriate to assign the decision-making responsibilities of the Planning Commission to the Inter-State Council (ISC). The Council is a constitutional entity created under Article 263 of the Constitution. It has a secretariat which will require suitable strengthening.”

Trinamool Congress chief, Banerjee went onto explain that “The existing constitutional provisions could be appropriately modified to enable the ISC to discharge its augmented range of functions. In the same vein the National Development Council (NDC) should also be subsumed within the new dispensation.” She added, “Whatever we do as elected representatives of the people, we should great care not to dismantle an existing functional mechanism without putting in place a credible body with a specific constitutional or statutory mandate.”

 “I may also add that the new structure should not in any way dilute the autonomy of the states (including fiscal autonomy) and in fact, protect and strengthen the federal character if our nation as enshrined in the Constitution, both in spirit and in practice,” said the chief minister.