The Union Budget 2016-17 presented to Parliament by finance minister Arun Jaitley today came as a rude shock for TDP government in Andhra Pradesh.
The budget ignored TDP government's request of according 'special status' to Andhra Pradesh.
AP CM N Chandrababu Naidu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi several times during the last few months with a request to accord special status to AP, which has been facing a revenue-deficit after bifurcation of state.
However, the budget had no mention about this. More shockingly, the budget also ignored providing funds for construction of AP's new capital city Amaravathi.
But, Chandrababu Naidu himself has to be blamed for Amaravathi not getting funds. Because, the Centre had allotted Rs 850 crore last year for Amaravathi, but Naidu diverted those funds for Pattiseema and other irrigation projects.
This angered Centre, which gave no funds in this budget for Amaravathi, stating that unless the AP government uses Rs 850 crore allotted by Centre earlier and submits utilisation certificate, it would not grant any fresh funds for Amaravathi.
Naidu has tough task ahead over how to complete construction of Amaravathi faster in the absence of funds from Centre this year.
Despite TDP being an ally of NDA government, it failed to create any impact on securing funds from Centre. The only silver lining is that AP got funds for Polavaram project, that too only Rs 100 crore and meagre funds for educational institutions like IIT, IIM, IISER, IIITs etc.
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