The Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday urged the Centre to create a hedge fund of sorts to offset foreign exchange fluctuations with respect to overseas loans given to the states.
Making a host of requests that essentially calls for sharing of expenditure, being incurred on the state government-implemented flagship programmes, by the Centre, state finance minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy said foreign exchange variations had been adding up to the burden of repayment and it should be addressed by a suitable mechanism.
Addressing a pre-Budget consultation meeting held by the Government of India today, Reddy said though the state had been witnessing a healthy growth in revenues, it had to spend more due to severe drought followed by heavy rains that affected the agriculture sector in the last couple of years.
While making a strong case for sharing the expenditure incurred on various social welfare measures being implemented in the state, the minister also requested the Centre to give a share in profit gas to Andhra Pradesh pertaining to the Krishna-Godavari Basin production.
“We do not enjoy any priority in allocation or in pricing of gas. I, therefore, request the central government to permit the state where the first land fall of offshore gas is to charge royalty. We also request to give priority in allocation of gas to the state, which has the first land fall point for the offshore gas reserves,” he said.
The state government also reiterated its request to declare Polavaram, Pranahita-Chevella, Kanthanpally and Dummugudem tail pond projects as national projects in addition to raise the grant component to irrigation projects under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme to 75 per cent.
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Among other requests, the minister appealed for enhancing the budgetary support under the social pension scheme to all the 7.2 million persons from the present 1.3 million people.
To cope with the increased budgetary spending in proportion to the revenues, it has requested the Centre to reschedule the outstanding loans as on March 2005 for a fresh term of 20 years.