HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao -- who is planning to visit more States to garner support for his Federal Front -- has begun to sharpen his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. Hitting out at the Centre once again on Wednesday, Rao said the Union government was neither releasing funds nor granting permissions for pending projects in Telangana.
“Centre neither suggests any policy, nor it releases required funds to States. It also does not give speedy approvals to various projects proposed by States. Prime Minister Modi said a lot about cooperative federalism. But, we (States) don’t get sufficient funds from the Centre. We need to visit Delhi repeatedly to get our State’s due,” the Chief Minister claimed.
“We have no option but to lobby hard with the Union Finance Ministry to get funds. The promises made by Centre to States are also not being fulfilled. For instance, NITI Aayog had categorically recommended the Centre to release more funds for Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha. Despite this, the Union government has not provided funds to these two projects,” he criticised. “If such powers are transferred, local governments can take better decisions and implement policies as per the needs of farmers that may vary from State to State. Centre doesn’t know about the crop cultivated in each State in accordance with the local soil,” he added.
Replying to a query posed by BJP MLC N Ramachandra Rao with regard to increasing debts in the State, the Chief Minister said that this was because the Centre was not releasing funds to continue development works and projects in the State. “The State government, as a result, has no option but to get loans from various financial institutions,” he said.
The Chief Minister also quickly added that the State’s debts were within permitted limits. “Centre’s debt is `82 lakh crore which is 49.5 per cent of the country’s annual GDP of `167 lakh crore. A whopping `8.3 lakh crore in the `24 lakh crore Union budget introduced for the financial year 2018-19 will go for payment of debts. When compared to the country’s debts, our State’s debts are about 21 per cent of the State’s GDP,” he said.
He mentioned that US’ debt was more than its annual GDP of 14 trillion dollars, while Japan’s debt was about 250 pc more than its GDP.