Chandrababu Naidu meets PM Modi, seeks more central aid for Andhra Pradesh

CM says need support to rebuild capital Amaravati; demands BPCL refinery

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday, and sought increased central assistance for the southern state — especially for rebuilding state capital Amaravati, the Polavaram Irrigation Project, and developing the state’s backward regions, with a Bundelkhand-like package.
 

The Andhra CM, who is on a two-day visit to the national capital — his first since taking office on June 12 — termed his discussions with the PM “constructive”. Naidu also sought central handholding for the state finances in the short-term, incentives for industrial development and additional allocation under the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for capital investment, targeting essential sectors such as roads, bridges, irrigation, and drinking water projects.

In his meeting with Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Naidu requested BPCL to set up a refinery in Andhra in consonance with Section 93(4) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. The Andhra CM said that an announcement on establishing a refinery in the state in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech would “augur well” for increasing the refinery capacity of the country in its journey towards achieving the objective of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

According to an Andhra government statement, Naidu “reposed confidence” in the PM’s leadership. He said the people of Andhra Pradesh have “emphatically placed their trust” in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and granted “both leaders a significant mandate to fulfil their promises and commitments”.

Naidu told the PM that Andhra continues to grapple with the “repercussions of the unscientific, unfair, and unjust bifurcation of 2014”. 

Sources in Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) sought to highlight that their leader spent the last three weeks assessing the state’s financial situation before making the trip to the national capital. 
 

Naidu conveyed to the PM that Andhra’s growth has plummeted, revenue receipts have tapered, and liabilities peaked because of the “unproductive expenditure and fiscal hara-kiri, marked by the exploitation of natural resources for personal use and no focus on the development of human resources”, of the YSR Congress Party regime such as the Polavaram project and building Amaravati.

The CM told the PM that Andhra Pradesh is “severely constrained” by lack of financial resources. “Committed expenses, including salaries, pensions and debt servicing, exceed the state's revenue receipts, leaving no fiscal space for productive capital investment," Naidu told the PM, according to the official release.

Naidu said the previous government resorted to indiscriminate borrowings, marked by hypothecation of future excise revenues and pledging of government buildings, combined with large-scale diversion of funds, which resulted in a situation of high public expectation and acute scarcity of resources. "There is no other way to face such challenge except by way of financial handholding by the central government," Naidu told the PM.

Apart from calling on the PM, the Andhra CM met Sixteenth Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya and half a dozen Union ministers — Home Minister Amit Shah, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, among others.

On Wednesday, on the eve of his visit to New Delhi, Naidu released a white paper on Amaravati, the second of seven that his government plans to put out. He had earlier released a white paper on the Polavaram project.

The Naidu-led TDP has 16 Lok Sabha MPs, making it the second-biggest party in the NDA, which makes it a crucial constituent of the coalition government at the Centre.

The CM, who is scheduled to conclude his two-day visit on Friday, is slated to meet the chief minister of neighbouring Telangana, Revanth Reddy, on Saturday. In a letter to Reddy last month, Naidu had proposed the meeting to resolve pending issues between the two states. In his reply, Reddy agreed that resolving all pending issues was imperative.

The Telangana CM, who led the Congress to victory in the Assembly polls in December 2023, was earlier with the TDP, and worked as a legislator under Naidu in united Andhra Pradesh and also later in Telangana. He quit the TDP to join the Congress in 2017.

CM's wish list

—Handholding of state finances in short term

—Centre's support for Polavaram Irrigation Project

—Financial support for Amaravati's government complex

—Incentives for industrial development

—Additional allocation under Scheme for Special Assistance to States for capital expenditure on infrastructure

—Support to Andhra's backward regions on the lines of Bundelkhand package

—Assistance for Dugarajapatnam port