Union Budget 2013: Maharashtra ignored in budget, state's ministers say

Mumbai: Though chief minister Prithviraj Chavan had no option but to welcome the general budget, his cabinet colleagues, both from the Congress and the NCP, criticized the Centre for ignoring Maharashtra despite the fact that it generates the highest revenue.
"Maharashtra was sidelined in the railway budget and now finance minister P Chidambaram has done more injustice to the state.Our contribution of central taxes is the highest; we were expecting a special status, but we have been ignored. It appears that the influence of Union ministers from the state is steadily dwindling," said a senior Congress minister.
A year ago, when Chavan made a presentation before prime minister Manmohan Singh on granting national project status to over half a dozen proposals and special grants for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, it was expected that the Centre would make a special provision in the budget proposals for 2013-14. But the CM’s plea was rejected. "Chavan had submitted a proposal for Rs 58,000 crore of central assistance for key projects. We feel our proposal was not considered at all," the minister said.
Chavan had also proposed that special assistance be given for the Mumbai trans-harbour link, express coastal road, Navi Mumbai international airport, Colaba-Bandra underground line, Pinjal-Damanganga river linking project and multimodal corridor between Alibaugh and Virar. “His contention was that if these proposals were declared national projects, it would be binding on the Centre to make provisions for 90% of the project costs in the budget,” the minister said.
The PM had agreed in principle to consider the proposals and had asked the state’s bureaucrats to make a presentation before the planning commission. "We did make such a presentation, with the hope that the commission would recommend to the finance ministry to consider the proposal,” the minister said. “But on Thursday, when we saw the budgetary proposals, we were shocked."
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