AP CM asks PM to resolve pending bifurcation issues

Vijayawada: Listing out the demands of the State, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve several pending issues that remained unattended for the last eight years after the bifurcation.

The Chief Minister met the Prime Minister in New Delhi on Wednesday and apprised him of several issues remained unsolved even after eight years of the bifurcation following which the residual State of Andhra Pradesh is hampered a lot. He explained that despite the special committee headed by Union Finance Secretary held several meetings and discussed the unsolved bifurcation issues and related assurances given by Government in Parliament, no progress has been made to resolve key issues.

He told the Prime Minister that a huge amount of Rs 32,625.25 crore including resource funding of Rs 18,330.45 crore for the fiscal 2014-15 and pension arrears payable to AP has been pending and appealed to expedite it immediately. The Chief Minister explained that the Finance Ministry has been imposing plethora of restrictions on the AP government on its permitted borrowings while adjusting the loans made by the previous TDP regime which had borrowed beyond the limits.

The YSRCP Government has been facing several restrictions now for the wrongs of the TDP regime, he said, stressing the need for the Prime Minister to intervene and do away with the restrictions. The Chief Minister made it clear that the State would suffer a lot financially if the restrictions continue unabated, especially at a time when the country is set to fight the new variant of the Covid pandemic.

He further said that no final decision has been made by the Centre on the estimated expenditure of the Polavaram Project despite the Technical Advisory Committee finalizing the total project cost as Rs 55,548 crore. Apart from not reimbursing the Rs 2,937.92 crore spent by the State Government on the project from its own revenues so far, the Centre has also wrongly chosen to treat the drinking water supply system separately from the project, he complained to the Prime Minister saying such a decision has not been applied to any other irrigation project which has got national status.