HYDERABAD: Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday lashed out at TRS working president and Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao on Sunday for his recent statement criticising the Central Ministers for using a ‘condescending tone’ in the Parliament when they said they were ‘giving’ funds to the States.
Contending that the Central government devolves funds based on the recommendations of the Finance Commission, Sitharaman wondered how could ‘give’ become an unacceptable word for the Telangana leader.
Speaking to the media in Hyderabad on Sunday, she said the word “give” was allowed to be used in the Parliament and was commonly used while replying to questions, but if there was any objection to its usage, one can write to the Lok Sabha Speaker for a ruling stating that it is an unparliamentary word.
Speaking on the contention of some States that they were being penalised despite performing well instead of the laggards who were being favoured for more devolutions, the Union Minister said, “This issue is before the Fifteenth Finance Commission. The FFC has given us recommendations for only this year. By October, it will give the recommendations for all the five years. It is working on what should be done with respect to the performing States,” she said.
The Union Minister said the percentage of devolution of funds was not decided by the Finance Ministry, but by the Finance Commission.
‘Funds given to TS as per FFC recommendation’
Whatever funds that were devolved to Telangana were as per the existent recommendation of the Finance Commission and that there was no shortfall from the recommended figure.
She discounted the arguments that the size of funding has come down to the Telangana State. “There has been an increase of 128 per cent in the Central devolutions in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Finance Commissions,” she said and added that this was much higher than many other States. The devolution of funds to Telangana increased from Rs 46,747 to Rs 1,06,606 crores.
When asked about the Central government not allocating around Rs 708 crore special grant to Telangana as recommended by the Finance Commission, Sitharaman said the issue has been referred back to the commission only because the category under which it was recommended did not exist before. It was pointed out that the recommended amount was over and above the traditional share from the Central pool of funds and did not exist under any specific Terms of Reference.