Centre giving more aid to Andhra than under special status: Rajnath
NEW DELHI: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday told Parliament that the Centre was providing more assistance than what it would have got under special category status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh, which also amounted to ruling out granting that status to the state.
The minister assured the Upper House that all promises made to the people of the state would be fulfilled and said 90 per cent of promises made under the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act, which had led to the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, have already been fulfilled. “The remaining promises will also be kept,” he said replying to a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the non-implementation of provisions of the 2014 Act. The home minister's statement came after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he had expected his successor Narendra Modi to fulfil the UPA government’s commitment on special category status to Andhra Pradesh as it was a promise made after consulting the BJP leaders at that time.
The TDP and other opposition parties also asked the Centre to honour its assurances in letter and spirit by granting special category status to Andhra Pradesh, even as the BJP accused the ruling party of the state of “misleading” its own people. The TDP quit the NDA coalition over this issue.
“Our government will fulfil the commitments made by our prime minister and former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh,” Rajnath Singh said.
After his reply, leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad categorically asked whether the Centre would give special category status to Andhra Pradesh and sought a reply in “Yes or No”.
To this, the minister wondered whether it was not clear from his reply. “Why are you just stuck at special category status. Why don’t you just move on? The idea behind special category status is that the state should get assistance. We are giving more assistance than that,” Singh said.
He said the state was entitled to get over ~ 22,000 crore as revenue deficit grant in five years ending 2019-20 and the Centre is disbursing the amount.
The home minister said there was a “conflict” between the former prime minister’s promise of special category status and the 14th Finance Commission report, which has not made any distinction between special category state and other states. Highlighting the projects appr- oved by the Centre in the past four years, he said the permission for setting up educational institutions have been given, out of the 11 promised and there would be no funds constraint.