Thank
you, Madam, for giving me an opportunity to speak on the Supplementary Demands
for Grants. First of all, I would like to thank the hon. Finance Minister. She
was kind enough to waive off GST on tamarind. A lot of poor people and lakhs of
tamarind workers in my constituency and in my State have benefited. Coming to
the Supplementary Demands for Grants, I would like to put forth my State’s
perspective more than the national perspective. The Central Government has
brought in an Ordinance where corporates have been given incentives in income
tax to the tune of Rs.1,45,000 crore. This is a welcome move because it will
provide a stimulus to the economy, especially during this downturn. But the
fact is that all this is going to go into the non-tax revenues and this will
not be a140 part of the
devolution of taxes to the States. Our State is already crippling due to lack
of finances. 160 We have huge
deficit. So, I request the hon. Minister to take a positive view on this as a
special case for our newly formed State. The bifurcation has resulted in
adverse implications for the finances of our State. We inherited 56 per cent of
the population, 60 per cent of the debt and we also inherited only 46 per cent
of revenues. There is a huge mismatch and there is a huge deficit in the
revenues for the State. It would not be inappropriate to say that the
bifurcation of the State took place with two promises. The first promise is the
special category status on the floor of this House and second is that they will
fulfill all280 the conditions
in the Andhra Pradesh Re-organization Act but the fact is that the special
category status has not been addressed so far. It was promised on the floor of
this House. It was promised in the manifestoes of both the320 BJP and the Congress parties. It was
promised not only in the House but was also promised in various meetings by the
hon. Prime Minister himself and all the other Ministers who have canvassed in
our State. So, I think it is the need of the hour to support our State. The
Government should act in time to keep up the promises made in the Andhra Pradesh
Re-organisation Act. After the bifurcation, we inherited almost Rs. 97,000
crore debt and in the past five years, the debt has risen to Rs. 2,58,000
crore. As of now, the Government is surviving420
purely on debt. The only way forward for Andhra Pradesh is to get special
category status. Our YSR Congress Party demands special category status for
Andhra Pradesh. It is already promised in the Andhra Pradesh Re-organization Act.
Madam,
I would like to talk about the Polavaram project. It is a very important
project. Andhra Pradesh is basically an agrarian State.480 More than 60 per cent of the population
thrives on agriculture. But in the past few years, the farmers have been hit with
continuous drought and cyclones. We can understand the plight of the farmers.
Andhra Pradesh has the highest indebted farmers in the country. So, it is time
for the Government to help us in constructing the Polavaram project which is a
part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act. It is a national project which
has to be constructed560 by
the Centre. There is almost Rs. 5,000 crore pending for the work already done
in the Polavaram project. We are already living on borrowed finances and the
interest part on this amount of Rs. 5,000 crore is close to Rs. 500 crore which
is a huge burden on our State. So, I appeal to the Government to release this
fund immediately. The project is also in full progress. Very soon, it is going
to reach the 42-metre level640
for the cofferdam which means that there will be submergence of land and a huge
amount needs to go into land acquisition and also for rehabilitation. So, it is
time for the Government to release the amount for the State. An Expert
Committee was constituted for this project. On the advice of the Expert
Committee, reverse tendering took place and700
we have a huge saving of almost Rs. 800 crore. I think this is a direct saving
to the Central Government. Please understand our positive attitude and help us
in completing the Polavaram project fast. Everything is on fast track. The
bills are paid in a few days’ time whenever the work is done. But here we have
delays for months. It is going to drain the exchequer with additional interest
cost. I would also like to bring to the notice of the hon. Finance Minister
that as part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, we were promised a
package800 like Bundelkhand
where a backward district gets benefit. In our State, seven districts have been
identified and every year an amount of Rs. 350 crore has to be released in this
regard. For the past two years and even for840
the current year, this amount has been pending. So, a total of Rs.1,050 crore
is pending for the State. I urge the Central Government to release this amount
very soon.
As
I have already said, ours is basically an agrarian State. We are mainly
dependent on the river Krishna. Although the Godavari passes through our State,
we are not able to use much of water from that river. So, as part of inter-linking
of rivers, I urge the Central Government to take up inter-linking of the
Krishna and the Godavari as a national project. If you see, in the river Krishna,
the water inflow into Andhra Pradesh, especially from Srisailam dam, has fallen
from 1200 TMC to 450 TMC. 960 It
may be because of climate change, construction of new projects or some other
reasons. It is almost one-third of our980
actual requirement of water. The only way to improve the demographic dividend
of the State is to inter-link these two rivers. I think this will be the
largest employment generator for the State. It will help, especially the
Rayalaseema region which is suffering from years and years of drought.
There
has been a global shift towards well-being economics with Bhutan rejecting GDP
as the main economic metric in favour of gross national happiness as early as
1971. The United Kingdom has also introduced some elements of it in its
economic policy. Recently in June, 2019, New Zealand became the first developed
country to make well-being the core to its entire budget and the key objective
for all its Government Ministries. I believe, we can adopt this as a planning
tool not only to achieve our targets for the Sustainable Development1120 Goals like poverty, hunger and health
but also to gradually shift our focus on people rather than on productivity.
The economy exists to serve our people and the environment, not the other way
round. I think this House should deliberate on this subject in great detail in
future. As the determination of our economic growth even today rests on GDP, I
would also like to mention here that India’s GDP for the second quarter of the
ongoing fiscal year is only 4.5 per cent, the lowest in at least six years.
Even growth at current prices is only 6.1 per cent. There is little doubt that
the Indian economy is in the midst of a slowdown, one that appears to be driven
by both supply and demand side factors. The Government has attempted to revive
demand by ensuring welfare growth1260
and seeking to expand other aspects of its own spending, but that strategy is
reaching the end of its usefulness. 1280
The Government’s final consumption expenditure has grown at over 15 per cent
year on year and is about 12.4 per cent of GDP. In other words, it contributes
almost two percentage points of the 4.5 per cent overall growth in GDP. The
non-government sector, therefore, may be growing only at about three per cent.
Clearly, the picture is much worse than the headline number of 4.5 per cent and
the Government spending is sucking dynamism out of the private sector.
Therefore, the Government will have to accept that this is a problem that
cannot continue to be tackled by its own spending. It has already sought to
revive some animal spirits in corporate India through tax cuts. However, more
is1400 needed. Long pending
structural reforms will have to be given some impetus. At the moment, risk must
be reduced through administrative, regulatory and judicial reforms. Here, I
would like to focus on matters relating to my State, which we have1440 been raising for quite some time.
I
would humbly want to bring the attention of this House to the amount of fund
that has been transferred to any kind of project for promoting clean energy
initiatives. Only 18 per cent of the total funds relating to coal cess has been
utilized for the clean energy projects out of the National Clean Energy Fund.
In spite of enough evidence of no action and multiple neglected requests of
States to allocate the funds for the State-level projects, it seems to be in an
impasse. Supporting the federal structure of our Constitution, I strongly argue
for a definitive plan of action from the Government either by preparing a
roadmap to spend the remaining unallocated funds within the next year to
improve the clean energy production or by devising a mechanism to share the
funds with the States, enabling them to come up with more projects required in
energy sector. 1595
