Harish Rao slams Centre for discrimination against Telangana

Hyderabad: Finance Minister T Harish Rao here on Wednesday slammed the Centre for its discrimination against Telangana in sanctioning projects and funds. Stating that the Central government failed to fulfill its promises made to Telangana, he said that latter did not take any steps for setting up of Bayyaram steel plant in Mahabubabad, railway coach factory in Kazipet and tribal university in Mulugu, he said while replying during the general discussion on the budget in the State Assembly here.

Telangana had paid Rs.3.65 lakh crore to the Centre towards GST and Income Tax in the last seven and a half years, while the state was given only Rs.1.93 lakh crore. The Centre had also put the LIC on sale along with BPCL and Pawan Hans. On the contrary, the state BJP leaders were spreading false information about Telangana. A Nobel Prize should be given to them for spreading false propaganda, Harish Rao said.

The Centre promised to fill up two crore jobs every year. “What happened to those promises?” he asked, demanding that the Congress members request the party leader Rahul Gandhi to put pressure on the Central government about the promises made on jobs. But Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao announced 80,039 jobs in the Assembly today, he said.

Explaining in detail about the development achieved by Telangana since 2014, Harish Rao said the Centre has extended an empty hand for Telangana in sanctioning projects and funds and completely ignored the farmers in the State on paddy procurement issue. He said the State government spent Rs.3.85 lakh crore on agriculture and its allied sectors in the seven and a half years. The Centre said that it would give Rs.5,000 crore for introducing reforms in the power sector in the next five years.

However, the Chief Minister turned down the proposal in the larger interest of farmers in the State. The Chief Minister also made it clear that the meters to motors in agricultural lands would not be installed.

The 15th Finance Commission has recommended special incentives for Telangana, which is a revenue surplus State. But nothing concrete was done till date. Explaining how Telangana stood in number place in per capita income, per capita power consumption and GSDP, the Finance Minister said the policies adopted by the Centre led to slight increase in debts.

However, he clarified that the debts were within the limit of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Referring to the pending dues pertaining to Arogyasri scheme, he promised that the dues would be cleared at the earliest. Harish Rao added that Telangana was also number one in State own tax revenue growth.

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