PM Modi Denies Bias Towards North, Suggests Rewarding States 'Like TN' for Population Control

New Delhi: Denying allegations of bias towards northern states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday tweeted that the Centre has suggested to the Finance Commission to incentivise states that work towards population control.

Modi wrote that this will particularly benefit southern states like Tamil Nadu, a state where protests against the BJP over the Cauvery issue have intensified.

“The Union Government has suggested to the Finance Commission to consider incentivizing States who have worked on population control. Thus, a state like Tamil Nadu, which has devoted a lot of effort, energy and resources towards population control would certainly benefit,” read the tweet.

Finance ministers from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry had met on Tuesday demanding reframing of the Terms of Reference for devolution of funds to states. The ministers alleged it was biased and in contradiction to principles of federalism.

The new terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission have said that the basis for the population counts relevant for the division of funds must be the 2011 Census and not, as it was in the past, the 1971 Census.

According to reports, between 1971 and 2011, except Telangana, the population share of four southern states in the total declined from 22.01 percent to 18.16 percent. This would mean that by using the 2011 Census for sharing resources there would be a decline in the flow of funds to these states.

Reacting to these allegations, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley through his blog post on Tuesday said that there was no inherent bias or mandate in the ToRs which can be construed as discriminatory against the states which made good progress in population control.

"Nothing could be further from truth", said Jaitley in his Facebook post.