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AP Status Quo
Highlights
Putting things in perspective, vis-a-vis the demand for Special Status by the AP government, the Centre here on Tuesday explained to the visiting AP Chief Minister that ‘Special Status or Special Package’, the substance is economic assistance.
Niti Aayog to draw roadmap to implement promises in Reorganisation Act
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New Delhi: Putting things in perspective, vis-a-vis the demand for Special Status by the AP government, the Centre here on Tuesday explained to the visiting AP Chief Minister that ‘Special Status or Special Package’, the substance is economic assistance.
“Whether you are demanding the status or package, you are seeking economic assistance for the development,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly told the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and directed the NITI Aayog to expedite a plan of assistance for Andhra Pradesh.
Cornered thus, the Chief Minister could only acknowledge the importance of such assistance for the development of the State and for competing with the neighbouring States. On the specific demand of the Special Status, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who addressed a joint press conference with Naidu in the afternoon after his meeting with him, said: "The Centre has to see how it could work out to reconcile the promise of the former Prime Minister (Dr Manmohan Singh) on the floor of Parliament on the Special Status with the present ground realities."
“What is important is to explore whether any special assistance is possible within the ambit of the law and provisions and the quantum of the same,” Jaitley said. The Centre is keen that it should help the State in every respect and had already extended considerable financial assistance to AP in the first year keeping in view its deficit revenues and challenges, the Union Finance Minister said.
Seven districts had been included in the special assistance list under the backward districts provision. Several Central institutes had been awarded, he added. "All commitments are fully binding on the nation. Call it a package or status, what constitutes it is a set of fundings that take place. After all, it is economic assistance", he reiterated again midway.
Assuring that the NITI Aayog would not be delaying its report as the Prime Minister himself had desired so, Jaitley said a more specific shape of the assistance would be known shortly after the PM announced the same. "But be assured, AP will be getting more than what you expect" he told the media refusing to compare it with the Bihar package or admit that the delay in announcing the same for AP was a political compulsion due to Bihar elections.
Later, picking up the threads, Naidu said though he continued to stick to his demand for the Special Status, he welcomed the proposal of the Centre. He said in his one and a half hours meeting with the PM and the FM along with NITI Aayog officials, including its vice-chairman Aravind Panagariya, he had listed out various forms of assistance needed for the State.
Naidu said the only difference with the Special Status would be in the form of 90 per cent grants for projects and Centrally-sponsored schemes. "Except for these two, there is nothing more to it,” he said. The State government is seeking more funds, more backward areas’ assistance to all the districts, special assistance for the capital city building, special tax incentives, etc", he explained.
To pointed questions on his failure to secure a promise on the Special Status, Naidu insisted that one should realize that the Special Status and special incentives were two different issues but the State needed the assistance for development.
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