Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu that it will not be possible to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh. He, however, assured Mr Naidu of ensuring that the state gets more financial help than what it would have got under special category.
On Tuesday, Mr Naidu met Mr Modi along with Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, NITI AYOG vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya and Central and state officials. During the one-and-a-half-hour meeting, Mr Naidu explained AP’s financial situation, implementation of the State Reorganisation Act and other relevant issues.
After meeting Mr Modi, Mr Naidu tried to explain to the media that the state would not get much benefit if the Centre announced special category status for AP. Pointing out that the special category status was different from incentives to industries, he said it was not the only solution for everything.
Mr Naidu said, “Special category status in not a sanjeevani,” and added that there was no use of granting special category status if the schemes could not be implemented. He said that there would only be two advantages to the status; the Centre would give 90 per cent funds as grants in Externally Assisted Projects (EAPS) and 90 per cent funds as grants in Centrally-Sponsored Schemes (CSS).
