Union govt to facilitate common market for Northern States

New Delhi, Apr 29 (UNI) The Union government today extended full co-operation for facilitiating a consenus among Northern States on issues concerning power, water and removal of inter-state barriers in the movement of goods as a step towards an integrated market for the entire country.

Stating this Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister T K A Nair told a 'Summit of Chief Secretares' that the vision of North Indian Common Economy (NICE) was signficant to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's vision of a common market for the country.

The meeting of Chief Secretaries of Northern States was organised by PHDCCI.

The concept of North Indian regional co-operation received complete support of the Chief Secretaries for NICE and in this regard it was agreed to follow a Common Minimum Economic Agenda for the states.

In the imediate future, they agreed to follow grid disipline so that there is sommoth functioning of the power system. This assumes signficance as many of the states are over drawing to meet their shortage, the total deficiency being 5,000 MW .

Mr Nair wanted the states to co-operate in solving the haunting problems of water and power.

He stressed the need for improving the industrial climate through improved infrastructure, better governance,improved law and order the better provisioning of public services.

Chief Secretaries of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Uttranchal and Additional Chief Secretaries of Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir particpated in the event.

A consensus was arrived to develop a common network of IT in northern region.

It was agreed to implement the recomendations of Empower Committee on VAT to phase out CST and to work towards a Single Goods and Services Tax.

On the issue of inter-state barrier on movement of vehicles which are frequently detained from checking essential documents like VAT, octroi and entry permit, the states agreed to minimise the difficulties at check points and ultimately work towards removal of barriers.

It was also agreed to set up automatic tax collection centres along borders of all inter-state highways. The states also expressed the need for developing uniformity of tax structure on the tax levied on hotels and aviation turbine fuel and rationalising the same.

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