Appearing not very happy with the Centre’s latest release of Rs. 1,976 crore assistance, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday said there was no clarity yet either on Special Category Status or the special assistance/ package.
Responding to a question during an interaction with visiting media persons from New Delhi, Mr. Naidu said he was still waiting for word from Centre on what it has to offer for the State in concrete terms. He had taken up the problems faced by Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation, the promises made over two years ago and it was up to the Centre now to come forward to help the State.
While avoiding direct criticism of the Centre, the Chief Minister said the Centre was aware of the fact that the bifurcation was done in an unscientific and unfair manner. The apportioning of revenue was more for Telangana though it got revenue-yielding Hyderabad and had lesser population than Andhra Pradesh which did not have any capital city of its own. This had led to a peculiar situation where Andhra Pradesh had a revenue deficit of Rs. 16,000 crore in the first year itself.
In the second year, the Centre agreed and the Finance Commission too suggested steps for covering this huge revenue deficit, he said. Yet, the Centre had released Rs. 2,500 crore earlier and Rs. 1,976 crore today. If deficit remained a problem, the latest amount released by the Centre for the capital today is Rs. 450 crore. This is in addition to the Rs. 1,000 crore sanctioned earlier which was clubbed with other municipal works relating to Vijayawada and Guntur. He wondered if this was enough when just the underground cabling in the capital alone is estimated at Rs.1,500 crore.
The Rs. 350 crore for development of backward districts too is not very encouraging considering the fact that the special package for Bundelkhand ran into thousands of crores, he said reminding media persons how the people of the State punished the 125-year-old Congress for unfair bifurcation by not returning a single candidate to the Assembly.
