Ahmedabad: In a comment which can give boost to the debate on states' autonomy and federal polity, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said there was a need to review the role of central regulatory authorities.
Modi was speaking at the inauguration of a workshop of the Forum of Indian Regulators (FOIR), organised by Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission.
"There is need to review the role of central regulatory commissions and authorities to ensure that they serve the nation's interests, and not the vote bank politics," he said.
"The current process of deciding the electricity tariffs by Electricity Regulatory Commissions (ERCs) is painfully long, but it requires no norms to announce or provide free electricity. It is like allowing the entire elephant to pass through, but the tail is trapped," Modi said.
Referring to dichotomy between exploration and utilisation of natural resources under the central norms, he said that Gujarat can produce natural gas but it does not have powers to consume it, or lay pipelines for gas grids.
"There is a policy which says that the states where coal is found can use it at lower rates, but there is no policy for states where natural gas is found," Modi said, adding that natural gas was abundant in Gujarat, but the state had to pay a highest price for it.
Saying that Gujarat had taken up an ambitious plan to transform the state's economy into natural gas based-one, he said, "However, the Centre is telling my government not to lay gas grid pipelines for providing CNG gas to cities, until they gave approval for it, and that has delayed our plans.
"The Centre has to keep itself out of such things...like where to lay gas grid pipelines... and leave it to the state." He also called for framing user-friendly, foolproof norms and regulations for bringing about transparency in the process of inviting tenders for infrastructure projects.
Several projects were implemented in the state under the JNNURM, but in the absence of any model framework, the norms and process for tenders differed everytime, he said.
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