All the biting bytes and show of anger seems to have finally forced the Centre to open its purse strings to assuage its ally Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh.
After angry statements from the Chief Minister and many other leaders of the State, the Central Government has swung into action to ensure that the fund-starved AP gets at least some respite.
A meeting attended by Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs M Venkaiah Naidu, Telugu Desam Party’s Minister for State YS Chowdary, Minister for Power Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, and Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha decided to release Rs500 crore to AP to help the State in bridging the revenue deficit. The meeting which discussed the issue of funds to be provided to Andhra Pradesh under the state re-organisation Act, also decided to release Rs350 crore to the backward districts of Rayalaseema and North Andhra. This was announced by the Centre in the past.
The meeting decided to ensure that these funds were released in a couple of days. The meeting also discussed the possibility of sanctioning another Rs1,000 crore to help the State in overcoming the revenue deficit.
The meeting also felt the need that the Urban Development Ministry should provide Rs1,000 crore for building the new State capital of Andhra Pradesh.
As the TDP Government has disapproved allocation of a paltry Rs100 for Polavaram project, the meeting felt that the steps should be taken to enhance the allocation suitably. The Centre has asked Polavaram Authority head Dinesh Kumar, and Special Chief Secretary Finance PV Ramesh to come to Delhi for discussion on the issue.
The Centre has softened its stand on the issue of additional allocations for Andhra Pradesh after a series of statements of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and many of his Cabinet colleagues expressing strong disapproval of “raw deal” in the Budget.
Issue has come to boil when the Budget Session of the Andhra Assembly will start from March 7. Sources said that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was planning to visit New Delhi and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi before March 12 when the State Budget will be presented.
Naidu was likely to go to Delhi over the weekend to meet Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
As the Budget proposals for 2015-16 were likely to be more than Rs100,000 crore and the State was facing revenue deficit of nearly Rs16,000 crore, the Naidu Government was banking heavily on liberal assistance from the Centre.