Chandrababu Naidu meets PM Modi, asks for more Central aid for Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Thursday. During the meeting, he sought more central assistance for the southern state, especially for the reconstruction of the capital Amaravati, the Polavaram irrigation project and development of the backward regions of the state, with a package similar to that of Bundelkhand.
The Andhra CM, who is on a two-day visit to the national capital, his first since assuming office on June 12, termed his talks with the PM “constructive”. Naidu also sought central control over the state’s finances in the short term, incentives for industrial development and additional allocation under the Special Assistance to States scheme for capital investment, targeting essential sectors such as roads, bridges, irrigation and drinking water projects.
According to a statement issued by the Andhra government, Naidu “trusted” the Prime Minister’s leadership. He said the people of Andhra Pradesh had “strongly reposed their confidence” in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and “given both leaders an important mandate to fulfil their promises and commitments”.
Naidu told the Prime Minister that Andhra is still grappling with the ‘consequences of the unscientific, unfair and unjust dichotomy of
2014”. He said: “The previous government’s miserable governance, marked by malice, corruption and mismanagement, has dealt the state an even more damaging blow than the split itself.”
Sources in Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) were keen to stress that their leader spent the last three weeks assessing the state’s financial situation before travelling to the national capital. The Andhra CM told the PM that his state’s financial situation “has deteriorated significantly due to the misadventures of the previous government and the absence of a long-term strategic development plan”.
Naidu told the Prime Minister that Andhra’s growth has slumped, revenues have fallen and debts have spiked due to the “unproductive expenditure and fiscal hara-kiri, characterised by exploitation of natural resources for personal use and no focus on human resource development”, of the YSR Congress Party regime. He accused the previous state government of not investing in crucial infrastructure such as the Polavaram project and the construction of Amaravati.
The CM told the PM that Andhra Pradesh is “severely constrained” due to lack of financial resources. “Committed expenditure, including salaries, pensions and debt servicing, exceeds the state’s revenue, leaving no fiscal space for productive capital investment,” Naidu told the PM, according to the official statement.
Naidu said the previous government resorted to indiscriminate borrowing, marked by pledging of future excise revenues and mortgaging of government buildings, coupled with large-scale diversion of funds, resulting in a situation of high public expectations and acute scarcity of resources. “There is no other way to meet such a challenge than through financial enforcement by the central government,” Naidu told the prime minister.
Besides meeting the Prime Minister, the Andhra CM met 16th Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya and half a dozen Union ministers — Home Minister Amit Shah, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, among others.
On Wednesday, on the eve of his visit to New Delhi, Naidu released a white paper on Amaravati, the second of seven that his government plans to bring out. Earlier, he had released a white paper on the Polavaram project.
The Naidu-led TDP has 16 Lok Sabha MPs, making it the second largest party in the NDA, making it a key component of the coalition government at the Centre.
The CM, who will conclude his two-day visit on Friday, will meet neighbouring Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Saturday. In a letter to Reddy last month, Naidu had suggested holding the meeting to resolve pending issues between the two states. In his reply, Reddy agreed that resolving all pending issues was necessary.
The Telangana CM, who led the Congress to victory in the December 2023 Assembly elections, was earlier with the TDP and worked as a legislator under Naidu in united Andhra Pradesh and later in Telangana as well. He quit the TDP to join the Congress in 2017.
First print: 04 Jul 2024 | 21:37 IST