Naidu scores again, gets biggest slice of Centre pie

Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu seems to have again had his way at the Centre. The task force on drought headed by Deputy PM L.K. Advani has allocated 2.2 lakh metric tonnes of foodgrains to Andhra, 1 lakh MTs to Tamil Nadu and 55,000 MTs to Karnataka for July.

The meeting of the task force was convened on an urgent basis at the request of Andhra. Naidu had been pressuring the Centre to convene it at the earliest. He had also called up Union Agriculture Minister Rajnath Singh in this regard. Now Andhra Pradesh, being a major ally of the A.B. Vajpayee Government, has ended up receiving the highest allocation of foodgrains. Naidu has also been fortunate to get the maximum allocation of 2.2 lakh MTs of rice, of the total of 6.34 lakh MTs of rice allocated to six states.

The BJP-ruled state of Gujarat figures next on the task force generosity list, getting 1.58 lakh MTs of foodgrains. Tamil Nadu, with a friendly government in power, is number three, with 1 lakh MTs of rice.

It is the Congress-ruled states which figure at the bottom. While Karnataka got 55,000 MTs of rice, Madhya Pradesh has been allocated 70,000 MTs and Chhattisgarh 31,000 MTs.