YSRCP MP V Vijayasai Reddy demands special category status to AP in All-Party meeting

NEW DELHI: YSR Congress Party Parliamentary Party Leader V Vijayasai Reddy demanded that Andhra Pradesh be given Special Category Status (SCS) owing to the bifurcation of the State, at the All-Party meeting held in New Delhi on Monday.

SCS is a classification given by the Centre to States that face disadvantages due to geographical or socio-economic conditions. It was promised to the State during bifurcation by the Congress. However, Andhra Pradesh did not get the classification till date.

V Vijayasai Reddy also requested for Parliament sessions to be held for more days. Stating that last time, the Parliament sat only for 56 days, he wrote that other countries like the US Congress and the British Parliament sit for 160 and 150 days respectively. He said that as suggested by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution in 2002, the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha should dit for 100 and 120 days respectively.

The YSRCP National General Secretary also said that women’s safety, cyber safety, issues of farmers, Indian coastal development and issues of backward classes should be important points of discussion in the Parliament.

Speaking about Andhra Pradesh, he demanded that various assurances made during bifurcation should be honoured without delay. “New government medical colleges are required in the State given that private investment for super-specialty hospitals is not forthcoming due to the lack of Tier-I cities post-bifurcation. Financial assistance is needed for setting up 12 new government medical colleges to ensure that each district has at least 1 government medical college.”

The MP requested for clearances for the long-pending Polavaram project and also wrote a budget request, “Investment clearance for Revised Cost Estimate II (Rs. 55,549 crores); Funding for drinking water components (Rs. 4,068 crores), Removal of component-wise restrictions (Rs. 2,937 crores), and Processing of Land Acquisition / Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LA/R&R) bills under Direct Benefit Transfer.”