Chandrababu Naidu seeks special status for AP

New Delhi, Feb 8 (INN): Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has attended the 1st meeting of NITI Ayog held at Prime Minister’s Residence here on Sunday.

Speaking to media persons at AP Bhavan later, Naidu informed that due to lack of time that he could not place a written document on NITI Ayog and a detailed paper would be furnished in two to three days. In the meeting the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of different states had detailed discussions on how to share the knowledge and resources and how to take forward the cooperative federalism.

The discussions were held on the Government of India Programmes like Swatch Bharath, Make in India, Jandhan Yojana and state Government prograzmmes like smart Villages, Smart Wards, 7 Missions, 5 Grids and 5 Campaigns. Suggestions are being given on how to integrate central and state government’s prioritized schemes and suggested to constitute committees and sub-committees and keeping the chief ministers as members, if necessary, said chief Minister.

He mentioned that the Prime Minister has constituted three committees in the same meeting one on Human Resource Development on skill development, a committee on sanitation for Swatch Bharat and third committee on the viability and the continuity of 66 centrally sponsored schemes. Prime Minister also suggested that the state governments have to constitute two task forces one for poverty eradication in rural areas and other one on make agriculture as a profitable one.

In response to the Prime Minister’s suggestion he has assured to constitute those two task forces under NITI Ayog said Chandrababu Naidu. The issues of inter-state river linkage also come up for discussion in the meeting and at this juncture he has insisted the necessity of intra-linkage of river Krishna and Godavari.

“As anticipated before bifurcation of the state about the revenue deficit, the State of Andhra Pradesh is 35 percent and faced a drastic Hud-Hud cyclone and less income generation, this issue was raised during the meeting and impressed the central government to assist the state government because they have assured during the state bifurcation to support the state to back up till the Andhra Pradesh became level player,” the Chief Minister said. He also insisted that the central government of provide 13 institutions, special status to the state, special package and special zone and providing fund for construction new capital as assured by the government at the time of bifurcation bill. The residuary state of Andhra Pradesh is getting revenue under VAT and other resources and the State of Telangana is getting 52 percent against the population ratio of 59:41.3. The difference of revenue receipt is about 11 percent in AP, he said.

“We have focused on the overall development and growth of the state with mode of 7 missions, 5 grids and 5 campaign modes and could achieve 7 percent of growth rate and 11.32 percent in agriculture though the rain fall deficit is 36 percent he said. To overcome the deficit of the state revenue more industries have to be established otherwise the state will lag behind,” the chief minister said.

Replying to a query, he said that the issue of increasing the number of assembly seats from 175 to 225 will be taken up to the central government level because it was ensured in APR Act. He opined that the NITI Ayog would yield good result because it is following good practices and they have made an attempt to integrate the ideas and schemes of the state governments also.

After the press conference, he met the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and discussed about the finance issues of the state and about assurances given at the time of bifurcation. After the meeting, Arun Jaitley briefed the media and said that their government was committed to the assurance given in the APR act and they would give more than what they have assured. The amount which was announced8:47 PM 2/8/2015 couple of days back is only the beginning of the commitment, he said.