Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday night called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah and discussed various issues of importance to the state, including releasing funds for the Polavaram project. Jagan submitted a memorandum on Polavaram, and urged Shah to consider the second revised cost estimate as per 2017-18 index to pass Rs 55,656 crore expenditure and issuing required directives to the Finance and Jal Shakti departments.
Jagan requested the Central government to reimburse the land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation (R&R) packages as per the Land Acquisition (LA) Act 2013. The Chief Minister informed that the number of families which have to be evacuated have risen considerably in 2017-18, vis-a-vis 2005-06 from 44,574 families to 1.06 lakh families, spiking LA and R&R costs.
He said that an amount of Rs 1,779 crore is still pending towards reimbursement of Polavaram works, including December 2018 bills. "Any delay will further escalate the cost and the national project which is a lifeline should be expedited," Jagan told Shah.
He also informed the Union Home Minister that Andhra Pradesh did not stop disbursing of welfare schemes even during the difficult COVID-19 pandemic times, and discussed pending dues to the state from the Union government, including GST dues from April to September 2020 amounting to Rs 4,308.46 crore, Rs 1,600 crore due towards PDS for the years from 2013-14 to 2018-19, dues to local bodies amounting to Rs 1,111.53 crore (as per the 14th Finance Commission) and Rs 1,954.5 crore (as per the 15th Finance Commission), besides Rs 3,801.98 crore pending towards NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme).
The Chief Minister also reiterated that special category status is important for the state.
The leaders also discussed the relocation of the High Court from Amaravati to Kurnool — the proposed judicial capital of the state as part of the plan to trifurcate the capital. Jagan reportedly urged Shah to issue a notification to decentralise administration, in order to set up three capitals with different functions in Visakhapatnam (executive), Amaravati (legislative) and Kurnool (judicial). He also mentioned that the BJP’s election manifesto in 2019 had talked about making Kurnool the judicial capital of the state, according to an official statement from the Chief Minister’s Office and reminded Shah that the 2019 manifesto of BJP also has a mention of making Kurnool as the judicial capital.
Jagan also sought the compensation for damage due to Cyclone Nivar to be disbursed soon. Jagan met Shah around 9 pm on Tuesday.
With IANS inputs