The rapid pace of disorderly urbanisation, productive employment, competitive energy prices, air quality improvement and ease-of-doing business at city level, were some of the common concerns raised by most of the states and UTs at the NITI Aayog meeting held in the city on Thursday.“Most of the CMs present at the Governing council meeting raised concerns over the pace of disorderly urbanisation taking place in the country. They unanimously said building high-rises and then worrying for roads was not the way ahead,” NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Ashok Kumar Lahiri said.He said, “The second most crucial aspect raised by them was productive employment. We deliberated upon how we are not closely looking at the demand side. We have a huge supply side of (workforce), but not engaging with the industry on what exactly they want and why there is a skill deficit.”He also noted that the states raised the matter of making energy prices more competitive. “There was a lot of discussion on energy. Many states/UTs were on board on adopting solar energy and cutting down the dependence of households on the grid. Many also showed interest in energy generated from bio-waste,” he said.The think-tank said that 20 states/UTs had already developed ‘Viksit Bharat Vision Documents’ while 10 more are in the process of developing their own roadmaps. It said the states/UTs would soon release the documents publicly.NITI Aayog member KV Raju said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired the meeting, advocated for the estimation of gross domestic product (GDP) at the district level, so that we know which ones are growing and which ones need further prodding. “There were also talks on ease of doing business at the city level,” he added.Meanwhile, southern states put forth many pro-active measures for robust elderly care and how to better human development indices.


