The Andhra Pradesh government has made new attempts to seek Special Category Status (SCS), even as the Centre has tabled the report of the Fifteenth Finance Commission. The SCS has been a long-pending demand from the State, as it was promised by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2014. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy congratulated the Centre on the Union Budget 2020-21 in his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reddy said the budget has been a ray of hope in times of economic turmoil in the nation. He added that the people of Andhra Pradesh continue to be dissatisfied, as there has been no mention of the state in the Centre’s budget announcement.
Mr Reddy reinstated the promises made to Andhra Pradesh at the time of bifurcation in 2014 need to be fulfilled. He said that post bifurcation of the Telugu states, Andhra Pradesh has witnessed immense economic hardships, and the non-grant of SCS has added to the trouble. He wrote: “The people of the state have been subjected to gross injustice owing to the non-grant of SCS. The Centre has put forth the argument that, in accordance with the recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, SCS ceased to exist,” CM YS Jagan wrote in his letter to PM Modi, quoting a press release by the Ministry of Finance from September 8, 2016.
The Andhra Chief Minister requested the Fifteenth Finance Commission to consider the State’s request. The Commission, however, said that the SCS issue was beyond their purview and came under the jurisdiction of the Centre, to which the CM stated, “In this situation where the Finance Commission has taken a very clear stand that the issue of grant of SCS does not fall within the limits within which It operates, there is a very definite inconsistency between the stand taken by the Ministry of Finance and the stand taken by the Commission. The people of Andhra Pradesh remain hapless victims of this unfortunate scenario. I humbly seek your kind intervention in this matter.”
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