Hyderabad : Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao did not represent properly the financial needs of Telangana State before the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
“The gap between the actual revenues and estimated expenditure from the financial year 2019-20 is expected to be around Rs. one lakh crore per annum. Therefore, Telangana needs financial assistance of at least Rs. five lakh crore from the Centre. However, what KCR asked for from Finance Commission was mere Rs. 50,000 crore which is not going to help the State in a longe run,” Narayana Reddy said in a media statement on Wednesday.
He said that KCR missed the opportunity to present before the Finance Commission a detailed list of things required to be done by the Centre for Telangana. “Instead of being ‘expressive’, KCR tried to become ‘impressive’ and wasted the opportunity. He sought Rs. 40,169 crore as maintenance grant for the State’s lift irrigation projects and Rs. 12,722 crore grant for Mission Bhagiratha. No clarity was given on funds required for other projects and schemes. A ‘significant increase’ was sought in grants to rural and urban bodies. When you don’t specify the number, the official agencies get the liberty to fix an amount on their own,” he pointed out.
The Congress leader also slammed KCR for seeking raise in additional borrowing facility. “Telangana is already in debts of over Rs. 2.50 lakh crore which is almost 150 per cent more than the actual revenues for one full year. If the Chief Minister is allowed to borrow more funds to bridge revenue-expenditure gap, then Telangana State will be in huge debts of over Rs.seven lakh crore in the next five years. State Government must learn to utilise the funds in a judicious manner than resorting to huge borrowings,” he said.(NSS)
