Maya casts spell, efforts on to get more funds for UP

Lucknow: Chief Minister Mayawati is out to impress the 13th Finance Commission whose members are in Lucknow to look into Uttar Pradesh's financial demands out of the central government's kitty.

Top bureaucrats have been on their toes right from the time Finance Commission chief Vijay Kelkar landed in Lucknow on Tuesday night along with other members of the Commission: B K Chaturvedi, Indra Raja Raman, Atul Sharma, Sanjeev Misra and Soumit Bose.

Grand reception:

Apart from ensuring their reception in new Honda City cars, the officials even halted traffic to provide an unhindered clear passage from the airport to the Taj Hotel, causing much inconvenience to other motorists on the city's main thoroughfare for some time.

Mayawati is leaving no stone unturned to demand her pound of flesh from the Commission.

Apart from renewing her earlier demand for a special development package of Rs 80,000 crores for Uttar Pradesh's backward regions - Bundelkhand and Purvanchal, she proposes to demand a major debt relief package.

Lowering of rate of interest, both on pending and fresh loans, was stated to be high on her list of demands.

According to a senior bureaucrat of the state finance department, the chief minister proposes to tell the Commission that the central government continues to determine Uttar Pradesh's share on the basis of the 1971 census though the state's population has more than doubled since then.

"We are going to be very emphatic on this point as it is the basis of our rightful demand for a greater share out of the central taxes," said the official, closely associated with the blueprint to be tabled before the Commission over the next two days.

The chairman and members of the commission would also be taken for field visits to Varanasi and Lalitpur districts.

"The idea is to let them have a first hand feel of the plight of the people in these areas," the official added.

Uttar Pradesh is the last state in the country to be visited by the Finance Commission, which is expected to submit its report by the end of November.