Despite demands by various political parties, including the ruling NDA ally TDP, the Centre on Friday remained non-committal on granting special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
However, the Union government promised in the Rajya Sabha to “hand hold” the revenue-deficit state to enable its progress.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley assured the House that though there is no provision of granting special category status as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the Centre is committed to fulfill all promises made to the state.
The minister was responding to a discussion on the 'status of implementation of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014,’ in which several parties, including the TDP, pressed for the grant of special category status to the state.
Jaitley said that under the new finance commission’s architecture, the divided state of Andhra Pradesh will get over Rs 2.06 lakh crore for 2015-20 as against Rs 64,575.30 crore that it would have otherwise received.
He said the special status promise was not in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, but was made by the then prime minister Manmohan Singh on the floor of the House and the government is now seeing what has to be done.
However, the Congress, which demanded granting special status as promised earlier, staged a walkout.
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