How we lost the special category status?

Prof E. Bijoykumar Singh *

Despite the Rajan committee's repeated assurance that the devolution formula proposed will be one of the many mechanisms to be used for transferring central funds to the state, we are not convinced. This issue is being discussed among political circles along with the border issue. Though no bandhs have been called on this issue, it is an issue with long term implications.

How do we tackle it? Should we go by the usual approach of requesting the centre to continue giving us special treatment despite everything? We are out of the least developed category. When we were inducted in the exalted list of special category states, no index for backwardness was constructed. It was geography, economics and politics. It served everyone's interest well. Now economics and politics have again compelled the centre to have a relook using objective criteria. Rajan Committee did extremely well by serving the immediate interest of UPA.

It promised special treatment for Bihar, Odisha and UP. Gujarat, the mascot of NDA revival, is not among the relatively developed states. Modi thus cannot boast of being in charge of a model state. Five states of the NER found themselves out of the club. We are worried rightly because special category status goes with many concessions and favourable term of transfer. We will be deprived of such concessions.

Could it have been otherwise? Using the very transparent formula used by the committee involving ten dimensions the results could have been different with different data set. It is not for the first time that our data base has landed us in such a situation. We never take our data base seriously mainly because policies are rarely framed with our data.

Why should we bother about the quality of something which is not likely to be used at all? We kept quite when for twenty five years Assam's poverty ratio was used as our poverty ratio. We kept quite when irrigation statistics remained constant for years when we claim to be doing so much for agriculture. We kept quiet about economic planning and today we are paying the price of that attitude. The silence has cost our future. Now we cannot exonerate ourselves of the responsibility of the mess.

We cannot blame the centre for everything and at the same time keep on asking for special treatment for ever. The time has come for us to have a serious look at our data base. Most of the studies conducted in the state suffered from this deficiency. Talking about poor quality data base became a ritual for us also. Whenever we do a study we talk about the poor quality of data base and then conveniently forget to do anything about it.

The authority has been accused of data mining leading to misrepresentation of Manipur's reality. One really does not know whether it is a case of overstatement or understatement. It can be in any direction. The other way is to question the choice of the indicators. How are we sure that these ten parameters capture the essence of backwardness? Had the committee used a different set of parameters, the results could have been different.

It is not only the choice of the parameters but the choice of the indicators also because in economics it is very common to have many alternative measures of the same thing. The committee has chosen ten dimensions and there must be justification for their choice. Such important choices need to come with justification. Thus re-examination of the level of backwardness can be meaningfully done by looking for, in our opinion, more appropriate indicators.

The problem still remains whether such parameters are equally valid across the states. If not, there is the question of comparability. The choice of parameters is not as simple as it seems. There are many areas where one can make a mistake. I wonder the committee really had time enough to dispassionately examine these issues. The dissent note by Shaibal Gupta writes "the majority report of the Committee seems to have expressed some judgements that defy logical arguments". Technical questions also have been raised in connection with the choice of variables.

Thus, Rajan committee index is not an infallible index. It can be criticised in many ways. The tragedy is any alternative measure also will be vulnerable to similar criticism because development is multi dimensional. One cannot include every dimension and the choice, as in this case, has to be subjective. The ranking thus is highly sensitive to such choice.

While we should remind the centre not to dump us, there is also a need to do some serious introspection regarding our data base. Publication of Statistical handbooks and economic surveys is not sufficient. The consistency and validity of data should be checked regularly. Using the same formula and data anyone would have got the same ranking.