Post-dated cheque on crashing bank: Congress on financial packages for Andhra, Bihar

The Congress on Tuesday, 30 July claimed that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had "pulled a fast one" on NDA allies in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh given that most announcements in the Budget will not see light of day for a few years.

The move, said Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, was "a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank". In a post on X, he also shared a media report claiming that financial packages for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are likely to cost the Centre Rs 20,000-30,000 crore.

"The non-biological PM's Kursi Bachao Budget makes critical promises to two states, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Specific projects in Bihar have been allocated Rs 58,900 crores, and in Andhra, Phase I of Polavaram Project alone will cost the Union Government (which is committed to bearing the entire expense of the Irrigation project) Rs 14,000 crore," he said.

Several other projects have been announced without clear allocations, but the total funding commitments made by the Budget to the two states run into lakhs of crores on paper, he said.

Despite these big commitments, Ramesh said a newspaper reported on Monday, 29 July that the financial package for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar may cost the exchequer only about Rs 20,000-30,000 crore this year.

"The Budget’s expenditure numbers confirm the same. The 'Special Assistance under the demand – Transfers to States' is Rs 20,000 crore. Even if the whole corpus is allocated only to these two states, that leaves a funding gap of tens of thousands of crores," he said.

"The Finance Minister has pulled a fast one on NDA allies in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Most of these grand announcements in the Budget will not see the light of day for a few years, at best. And when the time comes to redeem the funds for these promised projects, this unstable Government will no longer be in power," Ramesh claimed.

"As Mahatma Gandhi said of the Cripps Mission in 1942-- this is 'a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank'," Ramesh said.