WHY STEP MOTHER TREATMENT TO ANDHRA PRADESH?
WHY STEP
MOTHER TREATMENT TO ANDHRA PRADESH?
AP was bifurcated into two states against the wishes of people and
without the consent of the state assembly. AP separation left a black mark on
our constitution, democracy as the issue was not debated, discussed,
deliberated in parliament at length and bill was passed by closing the
parliament doors and cutting off the live telecast. Both UPA & NDA played
the cards to their perceived advantage. Unfortunately the regional parties
either maintained silence or followed his/her master voice (HMV) and ignored
their responsibilities.
AP separation was different
from earlier states reorganization happened in 2000, as the capital cities
remained with original states i.e., UP, MP, Bihar and newly carved states were
to built new capitals. In case of AP Hyderabad (Fifth largest city & second
largest IT city of India) remind with the newly carved state Telangana. The whole issue was handled in such a hurry
as if heavens are going to fall, resulting into improper reorganization bill. Due
to this even now after 2 ½ years of separation, both states are having problems
in distribution of assets, manpower etc resulting in ineffective
administration.
To compensate the revenue deficit mainly due to loss of stake in
Hyderabad, AP is promised with special status, Polavaram as national project, revenue
deficit finance, institutions & infrastructure through reorganization bill.
The special status promised in
parliament and further confirmed by NDA is not honored and trying to convince
people with special package. It is
improper on the part of NDA to find lame excuses like Neeti Ayog, 14TH
Finance Commission to put special status in cold storage. The series of events like its leaders getting felicitated for
giving special package in place of status, statements like package is better
than status, NDA is giving much more to
AP than cumulative amount given by UPA in 10 year tenure etc are unwarranted.
It took more than 2 ½ years to decide whether to give status or package. Now
package is announced but legal status to package is still kept pending, which
is creating doubts about the whole issue.
IIT, IIM, AIIMS, NIFT, IIIT, CIPET etc are given to AP as for the
national HRD plan, as AP naturally qualify the laid down criteria to establish them
under central grants. Sri Venkaiah Naidu’s claim on these institutions sanction
as major achievement of NDA is not going well with public. NDA will gain public
confidence only when sizable funding is allocated to establish these
institutions in a stipulated time frame.
Though Railway zone at Vizag is part of the reorganization bill, there
are no serious efforts from NDA to honor the commitment. By bringing
Vijayawada into picture big confusion is created. There are rumors that NDA is not in favor
due to political reasons (fear of losing votes in Orissa as their claim is for railway
zone at Bhubaneswar). BJP has to
remember that AP Government is part of NDA and also it has potential to
establish in AP. In fact AP accepted the leadership of AB Vajpayee and elected
8 MPs on BJP symbol in 1999. After that for reasons best known to them, BJP
lost its base in AP despite having Sri Venkaiah Naidu as its national
president.
Declaring Polavaram as national project with 100% GOI funding and
honoring the state’s request to leave the implementation to them is
appreciable move from GOI. As the state is committed to complete the project by
2018, GOI has to support the state with speedy environmental/legal/technical
clearances. PMO, Irrigation ministry, Central water commission, NABARD can be
part of the team Polavaram, so that the plans, BOQs, estimates, budgets can be
made with joint involvement and funds can be released without further
evaluation. At this stage GOI has to give clarity on its financial commitment
(upper ceiling if any), scope of the project i.e., issues related to Hydel
power project, Puruthotamapatnam, Expenditure incurred on Pattiseema.
AP Government is moving forward with plans to establish world class
capital “AMARAVATI” with integral theme cities i.e., IT, Education, Legal,
Health, Tourism, Finance etc. To realize this dream, over 33000 acres land is acquired
under land pooling with farmers participation and master plan is ready.
Temporary capital is ready in a record time and state started operating from Amravati.
State
is looking at initial seed funding and guarantees from GOI to generate external
funding. It is important at this stage to give clarity on scale of funding and
whether international funding for capital will be treated as external aided
project or not. In recently announced special package the clarity is missing.
The statements from central leadership are giving an impression that the GOI
support will be on limited scale and far below the expectations of AP. It is
not appropriate to treat AP capital on far with Raipur or Ranchi, as AP lost
its stake on mega city like Hyderabad and GOI is expected to compensate to build
such mega city in AP.
Few other projects like ports, steel plant, coastal corridor etc are
not moving forward and people are having serious doubts about grounding of the
same. Telugus have lot of expectations
on express highway, speed rails and industrial corridor linking Vijayawada with
Hyderabad and still have hopes that this project will be considered by GOI.
It is evident that the funding is not in scale with the projects
announced and foundation stones laid and GOI has to scale up the activity. It
is expected from GOI to clearly state that what is being given exclusively to
AP due to state separation with time frames and legal sanctity, rather than
quoting absolute figures.
B Guruva Reddy
grbonthu@gmail.com, 9866889246
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