Faced with financial crunch, the State government has cut capital expenditure and stopped certain development works.
At a media conference here on Tuesday, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said that he had taken up with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at Davos recently on various promised made by the Centre at the time of State bifurcation, including incentives to industries and bridging the deficit budget of around Rs.16,000 crore.
The Chief Minister quoted Mr. Jaitley as saying that the Centre would do its best and that a decision would be taken as early as possible. He said that even before bifurcation it was known that the residuary Andhra Pradesh would have a deficit budget while Telangana would end up with a surplus one. The Centre had committed that it would compensate for A.P.
Asked about the lukewarm response from the Centre, Mr. Naidu said the Centre was expecting that the financial position of the State would improve after a few years.
The Chief Minister, however, insisted that the Centre should help A.P. now and pointed out that it would get some relief on the financial front due to fall in crude oil prices internationally.
He parried a question on how the State intended to mobilise resources if the expected help from the Centre did not materialise. “ I am more anxious than you. I am doing my best,” he said.
On the release of Rs. 1,300 crore subsidy to industries in the State, he said the previous government had committed to it. He said while the agriculture and services sectors were doing well, things were not looking up on the industrial front. Giving an overview of the interactions he had with CEOs and industrialists from various global companies, Mr. Naidu said the general feedback from them was that India was far behind in regard to “ease of doing business”. He said rules and regulations would have to be simplified for foreign investors to come to India.
Sops for industries
The Chief Minister said his government would soon announce its own package of incentives for industries and was also negotiating with the Centre to tweak policies.
The govt. will announce its own package of incentives for industries soon, says CM
