Scrap Centrally-sponsored plans: Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

VIJAYAWADA, FEB. 21. The Finance Minister, Mr. Y. Ramakrishnudu, has felt that all the Centrally-sponsored schemes should be scrapped and the Central Government should devolve 50 per cent of its funds to the State Governments to enable them to take up schemes on the basis of their own priorities. Speaking to newspersons here today, he said that the Central Government had been releasing funds for various schemes and the States were forced to implement them by giving a matching grant of 50 per cent. He said that the schemes were designed keeping the needs of four or five States. But they were thrust on other States too which were forced to implement them in a bid to avail of the Central funds.

He wanted the Central Government to dispense with this procedure and scrap all the Centrally-sponsored schemes and provide the funds to the States to enable them to draw up their own schemes. He said that the Union Government should confine itself to defence, external affairs, communications etc. and devolve 50 per cent of its total revenues to the States

He refuted the charge of the Congress that the budget had been leaked. He said Congress leaders were using the statistics provided by the Government in its strategy papers to show that the budget had been leaked. He felt there would be no need to maintain secrecy of the budget if once the Government gave up the UK model and followed the US model in which budget proposals were revealed for debate in the Congress before they were adopted.

He pointed out that the TDP Government had inherited a debt of Rs. 16,000 crores from the Congress Government. The present Government was paying interest on loans borrowed by the previous Government, he reminded the Congress leaders who criticised the debt burden. Saying that 58 per cent of the loan was borrowed from the Central Government, he wanted it to waive the interest. He said efforts were being made to reduce the revenue deficit by 1 per cent and fiscal deficit by 2.15 per cent by 2003.

He said that the Central transfers were dwindling year after year. It was unjustifiable for the Eleventh Finance Commission to reduce the allocations to Andhra Pradesh causing a loss of Rs.748 crores.

To a question, he said that 500 audit reports were pending from local bodies. The Government would release funds due to local bodies soon after getting their audit reports. He stressed the need to collect user charges for all the public utility services. He said that the Government hospital at Kakinada had been collecting user charges and improved its performance considerably.

Cong-I alleges `manipulations'

Our Hyderabad Special Correspondent writes:

Meanwhile, the Congress-I official spokesperson, Mr. K. Rosaiah, alleged ``distortions and manipulations'' in budget documents and hinted at his party moving a privilege motion against the Finance Minister. Addressing a press conference, Mr. Rosaiah said that the House was misled with regard to information on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Andhra Pradesh. The wide variations in FDI figures in the economic survey report of 2000-2001, presented to the House yesterday and that of the 1999-2000 presented last year, ``exposes the mischief'' of the Government.

The Congress-I leader sought to explain that these figures pertained to FDI units having gone into production from the year 1991 to 1999 and also the foreign equity materialising thereby. A perusal of the two economic reports would reveal that the figures were inflated to present an impressive picture about the flow of FDI into Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Rosaiah contended that ``minor adjustments'' in the figures of the year preceding the current budget year were reasonable, but tampering with the figures of the last eight to nine years was done deliberately to mislead people.

The former Finance Minister sought an explanation for two different figures cited as annual plan size of 2001-2002 in the Finance Minister's speech. The annual plan was mentioned at Rs. 8991.02 crores at one place and at Rs. 10326.65 crores at another place in the budget speech.

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Section  : Southern States
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