Kerala Governor’s policy address in Assembly: Arif Mohammed Khan flags fiscal federalism, Press freedom

The policy address of Khan did not reflect the stand-off between the Raj Bhavan and the Government continuing for the last several months mainly on matters related to higher education and university administration. Even as a Bill passed by the Assembly to remove Governor as the ex-officio chancellor of universities in Kerala is pending with the Raj Bhavan, the Governor read out the government concern: “the Government is committed to the constitutional value that the intention of the legislature should take effect as law”.

Khan, in his address, said “a strong nation has to have a strong Centre, empowered states and actively functioning local governments. For the body politic of the nation to be strong, it needs strong limbs. States have heavy responsibilities in the social sectors and their fiscal position has to be strong. Recent measures to curtail the borrowing limits of the states constrain the scope of their interventions in the health, education and infrastructural sectors. While fiscal discipline has to be enforced in right earnest, there cannot be different yardsticks for state governments, which are not made applicable to the Union government”.

The Governor said incursions into the legislative domain of the states do not augur well for a cooperative federal setup. “Checks and balances in the system have to be scrupulously observed for the healthy functioning of our democratic polity. The freedom of the Press is a cardinal feature of every strong democratic society. Some instances of curtailing the freedom of the Press in different ways are coming up in some parts of the country. Here it needs to be underscored that even remotely a perception that agencies empowered to investigate matters regarding compliance to laws are acting in a manner, which deviate from the professionalism expected from them,’’ he said.

Criticising the Union Finance Ministry’s decision to include loans availed by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) within the ambit of the state’s overall borrowing limits, Khan said, “this would reduce the fiscal space for the government for furthering its development priorities and constrain the state’s resources. At this juncture, I hope that the question of fiscal federalism in the country is to be addressed in a very positive way by the Union government”.