TDP government in Andhra Pradesh is likely to fall in the central government’s argument of technical issues for granting special status to the truncated state. In such case, the state government may seek a financial package up to 50,000 Crore from the center. This is a similar package offered to Bihar by the Prime Minister in his recent election campaign.
The state government’s finance and planning departments are preparing a detailed wishlist of this package and it will be submitted to the central government in Chandrababu Naidu’s Delhi tour after he returns from his Turkey tour. It is learnt that Jaitley called up Chandrababu few days ago and explained him problems before granting special status to AP. He reportedly promised the CM of any assistance instead of the special status.
The sought package will have three parts. The first part will be the incentives that should be granted by Centers and the second part about the financial assistance to metro rail, industrial corridor and petro-chemical corridor and the third part about the reimbursement from the Centre for exemptions given by the state government to industries and special economic zones.
Metro rail projects in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, international airport at Bhogapuram, the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor and a petro-chemical corridor near Kakinada are planned to be developed with the help of this package. The center will be also asked to fund the development of a logistic hub, a Buddha tourist centre and a petroleum and natural gas university which will trigger economic activity in all the districts.
The state government is also seeking a share in the royalty that is paid to the center by the petro and gas companies for oil and gas exploration in the Krishna-Godavari Basin. A certain percentage of royalty will go in to developing the infrastructure across the east coast. We will have to see what the center decides!
