HYDERABAD: In major relief to the State government, the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday allowed the State to raise Rs 10,000 crore more through open market borrowings this year. This development took place on the second day of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s Delhi tour.
According to sources, the Centre earlier reduced the State’s borrowing by Rs 10,000 crore for not taking over the loans of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme. The State government agreed to take over the UDAY loans as directed by the Centre, following which it accorded permission for Rs 10,000 crore additional borrowing, sources said.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister had a meeting with Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and Special Chief Secretary (Finance) K Ramakrishna Rao in Delhi.According to sources, the Centre also agreed to extend the time limit for rice procurement. As the procurement of custom mill rice was delayed this year due to inspections at rice mills, the State government asked the Centre to extend the deadline, to which the Centre agreed.
KCR to launch I-Day celebrations on August 8
The Chief Minister will launch the Telangana government’s “Swatantra Bharatha Vajrotsava Dwi Saptaham” from August 8 at HICC. The two-week long 75th Independence Day celebrations will conclude on August 22 with a public meeting at LB Stadium.The State government constituted a committee for conducting the Independence Day celebrations with TRS MP K Keshava Rao as the chairman.
The committee held its first meeting here on Wednesday following which Keshava Rao told reporters that the National Anthem would be sung at all important junctions, including at traffic signals. Keshava Rao said that 1,000 people would be mobilised from each district for the meeting to be held at LB Stadium on August 23.