AP, TS urge Centre to relax FRBM norms

New Delhi/ Hyderabad: The Finance Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States urged the Centre to relax the norms of Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) norms.

Both the finance ministers, Yanamala Ramakrisnudu of AP and Eatala Rajender of Telangana, were participating in the pre-budget meeting with State Finance Ministers held under the chairmanship of Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley.

Talking to media, AP Finance Minister said unless States were stronger economically, country could not be strong.
Therefore, Centre must strengthen the economics of States by better devolution of resources, scrapping CSS schemes or making them 100 per cent cess without burdening the States with compulsory share. He said unless primary sector was healthy or strong, majority of population would not be economically strong or healthy since majority of the population were dependent on agriculture and other primary activities.

Focus on Infrastructure and Industry, he said, was crucial. Unless good infrastructure exists, investments would not come, employment and value addition to primary sector would come to a halt. Therefore, focus and incentives to promote infrastructure was essential at the State as well as at national level. States should be helped in this regard by the Centre.

AP’s growth, Yanamala, said suffered in the recent past and many new problems arose because of the reorganisation of the State. Central government should help the residuary State to overcome these difficulties liberally. As mentioned in the beginning, unless the State was healthy, national growths get pulled down.

He urged the 14th finance Commission to address the grievances of AP even after FRBM relaxations were given for a specific period. He also felt that it was time to do away with plan and non-plan expenditure and instead resort to revenue and capital budget system as is practised in many countries. This may be expedited. On the other hand, Telangana government had sought Rs 25,000 crore assistance from Centre for its ambitious Mission Kakatiya scheme.

Rajender said he requested the Centre to grant Special Category status to Telangana since it was a new State. Besides these, TS also sought national status for Pranahita-Chevella project and Centre’s funding for drinking water grid and development of roads schemes.