Harish seeks release of pending grants to Telangana from Centre
Hyderabad: Ahead of presenting the State Budget for 2022-23, Finance Minister T Harish Rao yet again requested the Centre for the early release of the grants due to Telangana since 2018-19. He urged union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to intervene in this regard and expedite release of pending funds. In a letter written to Nirmala […]
Hyderabad: Ahead of presenting the State Budget for 2022-23, Finance Minister T Harish Rao yet again requested the Centre for the early release of the grants due to Telangana since 2018-19. He urged union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to intervene in this regard and expedite release of pending funds.
In a letter written to Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, Harish Rao stated that grants under section 94(2) of the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act for the development of backward areas for the years 2019-20 and 2021-22 amounting to Rs 900 crores were yet to be released. He also urged her to extend the annual grant of Rs 450 crore for another five years beyond 2021-22. He stated that the annual grant of Rs 450 crore being sanctioned by the union government falls short of the requirement of Rs 30,751 crore and the amount of Rs 24,205 crore recommended by NITI Aayog.
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 absolute terms in 2020-21 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 took up the issue of the wrongful release of Rs 495.2 crore towards the Centre’s 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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