PM hails ‘Centre-State bhagidari’ in ushering ‘reforms by conviction and incentives’ during Covid

Asserting that this nudge for reform is rare in public finance, Mr. Modi said it was a nudge, incentivising the States to adopt progressive policies to avail additional funds.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic was formulated to ensure that solutions do not follow a ‘one size fits all’ model, and asserted that “reforms by conviction and incentives” were undertaken on the back of “Centre-state bhagidari (partnership)”. In a post on social media platform LinkedIn, he said that in the backdrop of the financial crunch seen across the world, States were able to borrow significantly more in 2020-21. “It would perhaps pleasantly surprise you that states were able to raise an extra ₹1.06 lakh crore in 2020-21. This significant increase in availability of resources was made possible by an approach of Centre-State bhagidari,” the prime minister said. Noting that COVID-19 pandemic has come with a whole new set of challenges to governments across the world in terms of policy-making, Mr. Modi said India was no exception and asserted that raising enough resources for public welfare while ensuring sustainability is proving to be one of the biggest challenges.