New Delhi:

Presenting her seventh straight budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said Andhra Pradesh will get support of Rs 15,000 crore to develop its capital. TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, is a key ally of the BJP, which is dependent on NDA constituents this time to reach the majority mark in the Lok Sabha. 

The announcement meets a key demand of the state government, which had, in the pre-budget meeting, sought a grant of Rs 15,000 crore for the construction and development of Amaravati as the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh.

Presenting the budget, Ms Sitharaman said the Centre recognises Andhra Pradesh’s need for a capital and will facilitate support through multi-lateral development agencies

“Government to arrange Rs 15,000 crore this fiscal and in future years for the development of capital city of Andhra Pradesh,” she said. 

After Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated into the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014, Hyderabad was announced as the common capital of the states for 10 years under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. On June 2 this year, the city ceased to be the capital of Andhra Pradesh. 

Days later, on June 11, Mr Naidu announced even before taking oath as the chief minister that Amaravati would be the sole capital of the state and there would not be three capitals as proposed by the previous YSR Congress Party government under Jagan Mohan Reddy. The three proposed cities were Visakhapatnam as the executive capital, Amaravati as the legislative capital and Kurnool as the judicial capital.

Mr Naidu had said Visakhapatnam would be developed as the financial capital of the state. 

The Andhra Pradesh chief minister, who is leading an NDA government in the state, had also met Home Minister Amit Shah last week and pushed for a “substantial fund allocation” in the Union Budget to address the state’s financial challenges.

He had emphasised that Andhra Pradesh continues to face the aftermath of the “unjust bifurcation” in 2014 and the previous administration’s “miserable governance,” sources had told news agency PTI.