Rajya Sabha MP and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) senior leader V. Vijayasai Reddy said the budgetary allocation of Rs 35,000 crore for vaccine development and distribution is the lone positive aspect in the 2021 – 22 union budget on Monday.

“Only one positive aspect visible in the budget is Rs 35,000 crore for vaccine development and distribution by the Central government. Other than this there is no benefit for Andhra Pradesh,” said Reddy.

He said the state government demanded at least one of the proposed four regional centres of National Institute of Virology and new textile parks to be located in AP.

Likewise, Reddy said they asked the Central government for more vistadome bhogies as they are pending for Visakhapatnam and Araku.

“In the Central government spending for paddy procurement, Rs 4,282 crore is due for AP state civil supplies corporation. There was not mention of white revolution in AP at all,” said Reddy.

As Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is planning to divide the 13 districts into 26, the MP demanded one organic farming university per district.

Reddy said the demand to raise standard deduction to Rs 1 lakh was not considered and termed the budget a survivalist budget.

“Amid Covid, we need a revivalist budget but not a survivalist budget,” the YSRPCP leader noted.

According to Reddy, the state is not satisfied with the Kharagpur – Vijayawada freight corridor and pointed out that only one fishing hub has been allocated for Visakhapatnam.

“One fishing hub is nothing compared to eight announced by our CM. Only very few senior citizen beneficiaries will be there in the state,” he observed on the benefits announced for people over 75 years of age.

As nearly 65 per cent of the people in the country depend on agriculture, Reddy said the Central government should give utmost importance and lamented that their request of raising Central government contribution for the PM Kisan scheme from Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 was not met.

Comparing AP’s Arogyasri to the Central government’s Ayushman Bharat, Reddy said the former covers more diseases than the latter.

Even as the southern state is planning to set up 13 new medical colleges, the Rajya Sabha MP highlighted that no medical project was allocated to the state.

Finally, all the AP political parties except the BJP and Jana Sena were opposing the Union Budget presented in the Parliament today. YCP MP Vijay Sai Reddy deplored that the Centre gave step-motherly treatment to Andhra Pradesh. Only those states, which were going for the elections, were given priority. There was no mention of the AP projects or funds in this year’s Union Budget.

Vijay Sai further said that there was no ‘Aatmanirbhara Andhra Pradesh’ in the Modi regime’s ‘Aatmanirbhara Bharat’. No new railway projects were announced for the State. There was no mention of the Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada metro rail projects at all. What more, there was no clarity on the funds allocation for the national project of Polavaram.

On the other hand, the TDP blamed the CM and his MPs for the Centre’s raw deal in the budget to AP. It was now proved that the Chief Minister met the Prime Minister and the Union Ministers many times only to get personal benefits and favours. The YCP was giving support to the Modi regime in the Rajya Sabha but it could not make the Centre give funds and projects to the State.

The TDP also objected to the manner in which the Amaravati Capital City project was also neglected in this year’s budget.