HYDERABAD: Days after Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya’s disclosure to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu that not more than Rs 3,000 crore could be allocated to Andhra Pradesh in the ensuing Union budget for 2016-17, the Chief Minister is all set to make a formal appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Tuesday, to ensure sufficient allocations are made to the reorganised State in the Union budget in order to implement the unfulfilled promises made to the State in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.
Two days after his government’s request to Centre seeking Rs 4,000 crore for Amaravati construction and Rs 8,000 crore for Polavaram project and Rs 13,799 crore to bridge revenue gap in the Union budget, Naidu, on Monday evening, left for Delhi along with senior officials to seek AP’s pound of flesh from Centre.
Naidu will be meeting Arun Jaitley on Tuesday evening to seek more funds and projects to the State. Later, he will be calling on Modi. During the meeting, Naidu is expected to urge Modi to announce special financial package for AP in the Union budget, besides pleading with him to clear all hurdles for the early completion of Polavaram project as neighbouring Odisha and Chhattisgarh are raising objections to its construction.
In fact, according to sources in the State finance department, AP is unlikely to get special financial package, which is due for the reorganised State, post-bifurcation. This was already hinted by the Niti Aayog vice chairman during his interaction with Naidu that had taken place in Vijayawada, a month ago. During a recent meeting that was held at Delhi last week, the same was informed to some of the State officials, sources said.
With this development, Naidu during his meeting with PM and FM may seek a Bihar-like financial package to AP in the Union budget to face challenges thrown up by bifurcation. He is also expected to urge the duo to be liberal towards AP while allocating funds in the Union budget to construct new capital city and Polavaram project.