Come to the aid of Andhra Pradesh

PNS | New Delhi

Listing out the demands of the State, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve several pending issues that had remained unattended for the past eight years after the bifurcation.

The Chief Minister met the Prime Minister here on Wednesday and apprised him that several issues remained unsolved even after eight years of the State bifurcation, following which the residual state of Andhra Pradesh was struggling.He explained that despite the special committee headed by the Union Finance Secretary holding several meetings, and Parliament debates on the unsolved bifurcation issues and related assurances given by the government, no action was taken.

He told the Prime Minister that a huge amount of Rs. 32,625.25 crore, including resource funding of Rs. 18,330.45 crore for the fiscal 2014-15 and pension arrears payable to AP, had been pending.The Chief Minister explained that the Finance Ministry had been imposing a plethora of restrictions on the AP government on its permitted borrowings while adjusting the loans made by the previous TDP regime, which had borrowed beyond the limits.

The YSRCP Government has been facing several restrictions, he said, stressing the need for the Prime Minister to intervene and do away with the restrictions. The Chief Minister made it clear that the State would suffer a lot financially if the restrictions continued unabated, especially at a time when the country was set to fight the new variant of Covid-19.

He further said that a final decision had not been taken by the Centre on the estimated expenditure of the Polavaram project, despite the Technical Advisory Committee fixing the total project cost at Rs. 55,548 crore. Apart from not reimbursing the Rs. 2,937.92 crore spent by the State government on the project from its own revenues so far, the Centre had also wrongly chosen to treat the drinking water supply system separately from the project, he complained to the Prime Minister, and added that such a decision had not been applied to any other irrigation project with national status.

He appealed to the Prime Minister to do away with the policy of treating the project cost component-wise as it was escalating the total project cost besides causing delay and difficulties in reimbursement of the bills.

He also urged the PM to release Rs.10,485.38 crore immediately on ad-hoc basis to begin land acquisition and take up the works of relief and rehabilitation of families displaced in view of the efforts to increase the height of the dam to 41.15 m.

The Chief Minister requested the Prime Minister to take immediate steps to ensure that the Telangana Government paid its dues of Rs. 6,886 crore outstanding from the TS Discoms immediately to AP GENCO, which was in dire straits.  

Pointing out the flaws and the irrational points in the National Food Security Act, the Chief Minister said that AP was being put to huge financial losses because of the faulty Act. He said that the Niti Ayog also had agreed with the view and there was a need to correct it.
Because of the flaws in the Act, some 56 lakh eligible families in the State were foregoing the benefits under the PMGKAY, he pointed out saying the State government had spent Rs. 5,527 crore so far.He sought allotment of 77,000 tonnes of ration rice to the AP State out of the 3 lakh tonnes being stranded at the Centre every month.

He further asked the Prime Minister to grant 14 more medical colleges to the State as there were only 12 medical colleges now. There are now 26 districts in the State after reorganisation, each having a population of 18 lakh.

He also appealed to the Prime Minister to allot mines to meet the iron ore requirement of the steel plant being built at Kadapa and extend all cooperation to the proposed 76.9-km-long Metro Rail Project in Visakhapatnam, for which DPR had already been submitted, besides fulfilling the promise of granting special status to the State as per the assurances given in the Parliament.

The Chief Minister assured the Prime Minister that the AP government was prepared to face the emerging BF-7 Covid threat.