Budget Session: Governor skirts ‘three capitals’ issue

VIJAYAWADA: The Budget Session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly witnessed a noisy start as Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan preferred to keep mum on the 'three capitals' issue in his customary address. Infuriated over the Governor’s silence on the issue, the Opposition Telugu Desam members shouted in the House, leading to disturbance of the House proceedings.

Harichandan neither made a mention of the ‘three capitals' nor did he speak about the decentralisation of administration that the Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy regime has been stressing on. But he spoke about 'decentralisation of governance' in the context of creation of new districts in the state hinting about the policy of the YSRC government.

The Governor said the government had been making relentless efforts in ensuring decentralised and inclusive governance for the past three years. He said the government had been working to maintain a decentralised, inclusive government. He stated that in accordance with the objective of decentralised and good governance, the government embarked on restructuring of districts and the administration would begin in the new districts from Ugadi. The Governor said the state economy was projected to grow by 16.82 per cent.

Harichandan said our nation and the state had gone through a difficult phase in the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “Bifurcation-related stress, five years of policy paralysis during 2014-19, a year of economic downturn during 2019-20 and two subsequent years of Covid-19 pandemic have severely impacted state finances. The state has demonstrated a real GSDP growth of 0.22 per cent in the financial year 2020-21 and as against this, the country’s real GDP shrank by 7.3 per cent during the same period. He stated that AP’s GSDP at constant prices demonstrated a year-on-year growth of 9.91 per cent during the year 2021-22,” he said.

The Governor said, “The advance estimates of the state economy for the year 2021-22 show the overall growth at 16.82 per cent at current prices. The per capita income has moved up to Rs 2,04,758 from Rs 1,76,707 last year with a highly impressive growth rate of 15.87 per cent. The elaborate inclusive model of governance adopted under Navaratnalu to improve the lives of people is proving holistic and merits replication by other states and we have adopted the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) broad agenda of ‘leave no one behind’ under the Navaratnalu framework wherein all the SDGs have been mapped with the state welfare schemes implemented on saturation basis.”

“As many as 15,715 government schools under Mana Badi-Nadu Nedu in phase one have been completed with Rs 3,669 crore and 42,000 schools will be strengthened in the next two years with Rs 15,000 crore,” he said and added that the development of public schools had taken place under the Nadu-Nedu works. He said Rs 13,023 crore was spent under the Amma Vodi scheme to 44.5 lakh mothers.

The Governor said so far 52.38 lakh farmers had received Rs 20, 162 crore. He said 18.55 lakh farmers had benefited under the 9-hour free electricity scheme with Rs  9,091 crores in 2021-2022, benefiting farmers.

A total of Rs 1,416 crore has been provided to small traders under the Jagananna Thodu scheme, Rs 770 crore for Vahana Mitra, Rs 12,758 crore to self-help groups under YSR Asara, and Rs 2,354 crore under zero interest, he said.

“I am happy to mention that the government has implemented various welfare programmes in a transparent manner by directly transferring Rs 1,32,126 crore to the beneficiaries through direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode. The government plans to nurture industrial development by operationalising three industrial corridors and developing three ports of Bhavanapadu, Ramayapatna and Machilipatnam,” the Governor said.