HYDERABAD: Countering the claims of the BJP on central funds granted to Telangana, finance minister T Harish Rao said while the Centre had collected Rs 3.65 lakh crore from Telangana since 2014, the state got only Rs 1.68 lakh crore towards its share in central taxes, Finance Commission grants and other funds.
“The Centre owes Rs 7,180 crore to Telangana, including the arrears of 13th, 14th and 15th Finance Commissions, backward region grant for 2019-22, GST compensation and central-sponsored schemes,” Harish Rao said at a press conference on Saturday.
Calling the BJP as ‘bada jhoota party’, the minister said he was releasing the figures officially and dared the BJP leaders to counter with facts and figures and stop resorting to false propaganda on funds allocated and released by the Centre.
Harish Rao said the Centre was deliberately weakening the state governments financially. In the name of cess, the Centre was cutting revenues of the states. “State governments were supposed to get 41% of the share in taxes, but due to cesses, the share of the state governments was not crossing even 25%. Though the Finance Commission recommended funds to Telangana, the NDA government has ignored the recommendations,” the finance minister said.
He also dismissed the claims by the BJP leaders that many central schemes were being implemented by the state government as their own. “For Aasara pensions, the TRS government spent Rs 48,273 crore in the last seven years, while the Centre’s assistance was just Rs 1,645 crore, which was a mere 3.4% of the total amount,” Harish Rao said.
He advised the BJP leaders to get pending funds from the Centre and also get national project status to Kaleshwaram. TRS MLAs A Jeevan Reddy, Challa Dharma Reddy and Chanti Kranti Kiran were present.
