Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy will leave for Delhi on Thursday and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The CM will brief the central leaders on his Davos tour and also discuss matters like release of central funds to the state.
The chief minister will depart for Delhi at 11.10am from Gannavaram airport and is likely to return to the state on Friday.
The last time the CM had a meeting with the Prime Minister was on April 5. It was a lengthy meeting that lasted over 45 minutes. He discussed various issues of the state. Later, the Centre had raised the state’s borrowing limit.
According to sources, CM Jagan would also discuss with the PM and Shah the presidential and vice-presidential elections and plead for a further easing of the borrowing limit for AP. There is a possibility of the chief minister extending his party’s support to the NDA in these elections in July.
Apart from issues concerning additional borrowings and the revised expenditure for Polavaram, Jagan might also discuss other issues of importance to the state, the sources said.
Jagan is expected to request the Centre to increase the state’s net borrowing ceiling for the current financial year in the backdrop of the row over the state’s mounting debt burden and unaccounted loans. The CAG has been asking the AP government to furnish details related to loans raised by public sector undertakings backed by state guarantee. CAG is yet to finalise the state’s annual accounts for the 2021-22 financial year as the AP government did not furnish details of the liabilities.
Consequently, the Centre is yet to fix the fresh borrowing limit, thereby limiting the state’s scope for raising loans from the open market.
Due to various reasons, the Centre has put a squeeze on neighbouring Telangana’s borrowings that has vastly hampered its cash flow. A similar situation may arise in AP too in the future. AP finance minister Buggana Rajendranath and top finance officials have been regularly meeting Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman but without much help.
CM Jagan will also seek an immediate reimbursement of Rs 13,000 crore for the Polavaram project, for the works that were already done.
