HYDERABAD: While pointing out that even the Union government’s debts have increased by 244 per cent, AIMIM legislative party leader Akbaruddin Owaisi said that showing the state finances in poor light would send a wrong signal to industries that are looking forward to invest in Telangana.
Speaking during the debate on Telangana State Finances — White Paper in the Legislative Assembly, the AIMIM floor leader also wanted to know from the state government what message it wanted to send by releasing a white paper on state finances.
“We may have political differences and divergent views on state finances but let us not give the message that Telangana is not a viable state,” Akbaruddin said.
Seeking clarification, Akbar said that the state government has conveniently taken statistics from the reports of Comptroller and Auditor General of India and Reserve Bank of India to suit its narrative and this resulted in wrong figures Claiming that Telangana witnessed more development during 10-year rule of the BRS than 57-year rule of the Congress, Akbar said: “The white paper presented in the Assembly claims that in 57 years, undivided Andhra Pradesh incurred a total expenditure of Rs 11.94 lakh crore, while Telangana spent Rs 12.24 lakh crore in just 10 years. Can this be true?”
“The total expenditure of united Andhra Pradesh from 1956-57 to 2013-2014 was just Rs 11.94 lakh crore but Telangana’s expenditure in just 10 years was Rs 12.24 lakh crore,” he said, adding that this appeared to be due to officials blindly copy pasting figures from reports.