Harish Rao seeks early release of pending grants to Telangana

Hyderabad: Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Monday urged the Centre for the release of the grants due to Telangana since 2018-19 at the earliest. He urged the intervention of union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in these matters In a letter written to Nirmala Sitharaman, Harish Rao stated that grants under section 94(2) of the […]

Hyderabad: Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Monday urged the Centre for the release of the grants due to Telangana since 2018-19 at the earliest. He urged the intervention of union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in these matters

In a letter written to Nirmala Sitharaman, Harish Rao stated that grants under section 94(2) of the A.P. Re-organisation Act for the development of backward areas for the years 2019-20 and 2021-22 amounting to Rs 900 crores are yet to be released. He also urged her to extend the annual grant of Rs 450 crore for another five years beyond 2021-22.

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Further, the union Finance Minister was requested to reconsider and release grants amounting to Rs 817.61 crore (Rs 315.32 crore for rural local bodies and Rs 502.29 crore for urban local bodies) recommended by the Fourteenth Finance Commission. He stated that Telangana has fulfilled all the conditions, but the grants were denied without any specific reason.

He also pointed out that the Fifteenth Finance Commission recommended Rs 723 crore as a special grant for 2020-21 as the tax devolution for the State was project to decline in the said fiscal when compared to 2019-20. “Grants recommended by the Finance Commission were never denied in the past,” he said, urging the Centre to re-consider the decision and release of the grant without any further delay.

Harish Rao also highlighted that the Centre wrongly released Rs 495.2 crore towards its share of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) being implemented in Telangana to Andhra Pradesh in 2014-15, the first year of the State formation. He said the amount which was due to Telangana, was wrongly released to Andhra Pradesh. Though the issue was taken up with the Andhra Pradesh government and also the Accountant General, the amount was yet to be adjusted to Telangana. He urged the Centre to release the amount to Telangana on a priority basis.

He sought release of IGST settlement dues amounting to Rs 210 crore, which is the due share of Telangana in the IGST amount of Rs 13,944 crore transferred by the Centre to the Consolidated Fund of India in the year 2018-19.

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