If the reports carried by some national media are to believed, Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has asked for financial assistance to the extent of Rs 1 lakh crore from the Centre in various ways to bail out the state from severe financial crisis.
Naidu gave representations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and various Central ministers during his two-day tour to New Delhi seeking handholding to the state in different forms, as the state is in a terrible financial crisis.
According to these reports, though Modi and the Union ministers whom Naidu had met in Delhi, have agreed to help Andhra Pradesh to a maximum extent, they did not exactly commit on the requests made by the chief minister.
“But discussions are going on to consider the same,” these reports said.
Some of the requests made by Naidu to the Centre include: permission to enhance the borrowing limit by Rs 7,000 crore by increasing the fiscal deficit limit to from 3% to 3.5%; A massive assistance of Rs 50,000 crore to rebuild Amaravati, including Rs 15,000 crore immediately this year;
Another Rs 12,000 crore for taking up works on Polavaram with a commitment to enhance the assistance keeping in view the cost overrun and time overrun; an amount of Rs 15,000 crore to clear the overdraft to the RBI taken by the previous Jagan government and Rs 10,000 crore towards long-term loan for creation of infrastructural facilities like roads.
Since there is no alternative but to get maximum central assistance from the Centre, Naidu put forth these requests before Modi and others.
“Since the Union budget has not been prepared yet, Naidu is of the hope that the Centre might incorporate at least some of them in the budget,” sources said.
