Centre to keep its Rs 9-crore promise to state

Desaraju Surya / TNN / Jul 14, 2006, 02:17 IST

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Centre has finally agreed to foot a bill of Rs 9 crore that the former owes to the Indian Air Force.

Centre to keep its Rs 9-crore promise to state

HYDERABAD: After being badgered by the Andhra Pradesh government for four long years, the Centre has finally agreed to foot a bill of Rs 9 crore that the former owes to the Indian Air Force.
The state government owes the IAF this amount for using the latter's helicopters for emergency operations over the last four years.
The plea of the state government — which began during the time of Chandrababu Naidu and still continues — is that "we are not in a position to bear the costs."
Both Naidu as well as Y S Rajasekhara Reddy have written many letters to the Union government requesting the Centre to take care of the IAF bill.

During the previous NDA regime, the then defence minister George Fernandes rejected the state government's plea as "it would set a bad precedent" and the "Centre could not concede such demands if raised by other states."
Even the IAF took strong exception to the state government's attitude and repeatedly wrote letters seeking immediate clearance of the dues.
But the state government did not pay heed and Chandrababu Naidu used his good offices to prevail upon the NDA government to sort out the issue. Unable to turn down Naidu's request, the then Cabinet Secretary reportedly agreed to pay the IAF on behalf of the state government.

It was supposed to be a "one-time settlement" but in the event no payment was made to the IAF. After the change of government in the state, the issue continued to hang fire and the IAF continued to remind the state of the outstanding issue.
At this point the present chief minister began writing to the Centre to clear the IAF bills as the then Cabinet Secretary had made a "commitment."
The issue was also brought to the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who directed his office to look into it.
Finally, the Cabinet Secretary last fortnight agreed to concede the state government's demand and clear the dues to IAF. But no formal orders have been issued so far.
The payment will be made by the Union home ministry. The state government normally uses the IAF and also the Indian Navy choppers in times of emergencies like floods and cyclones to possibly evacuate affected people and also drop food packets to victims in the affected regions.
"In the past three to four years, we had to use the defence helicopters at least on eight to ten occasions, including last year's floods. We have almost been branded as 'defaulters' and the defence ministry is reluctant to help us out in emergencies.
But they are still giving us the helicopters and personnel only in view of the situational demands," a top bureaucrat in the revenue department told TOI.
Revenue secretary D C Rosaiah, who had earlier served as the relief commissioner, said it was only due to paucity of funds that the state government had requested the Centre to pay the defence ministry on its behalf.
"Normally, we make such payments from the relief grants we get from the Centre. We might have had a deficit at that point of time and hence wanted the Centre to make the payment," he added.

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