Loans for KLIS as per RBI rules

Hyderabad: Making wild allegations against the Telangana government come easy for the BJP and Congress, but facts and figures have time and again proved them wrong. On Monday, the Centre in Parliament gave a clean chit to the State administration on the technical feasibility and financial viability of the mega Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS). […]

Hyderabad: Making wild allegations against the Telangana government come easy for the BJP and Congress, but facts and figures have time and again proved them wrong.

On Monday, the Centre in Parliament gave a clean chit to the State administration on the technical feasibility and financial viability of the mega Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS). Both the saffron party and the Grand Old Party have been crying hoarse about these aspects of the prestigious project besides other alleged irregularities.

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Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad informed Lok Sabha that Public Sector Banks (PSBs) had approved the loans for KLIS as per the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). All the term loans, including those availed for the project, were approved based on technical feasibility, financial/commercial viability and bankability of the project, he said.

In response to a question raised by Congress MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, the union Minister said the PSBs had informed that all term loans were appraised as per the RBI guidelines and Board-approved policies. For infrastructure projects, the appraisal includes techno-economic valuation reports obtained from reputed external experts, he said.

Uttam had sought information on the guarantees given by the Telangana government towards borrowings of all corporations and PSUs, especially those obtained by the Kaleshwaram Irrigation Project Corporation Limited. The Nalgonda MP, who has been consistently accusing the State government of irregularities and inflated expenditure over the project, sought to know other details such as the loan amount, lending terms, interest rate, moratorium and repayment period for KLIS. He also raised doubts over loan appraisals and financial viability of the project.

Karad said as per RBI norms, it was prohibited from disclosing borrower-wise credit information. But he pointed out that the Telangana government gave guarantees towards total loans amounting to Rs 1.67,308 crore drawn by corporations and PSUs of the State government from PSBs between 2014 and 2022. The loans, he asserted, were taken for various development works.