Telangana Finance Minister Etala Rajender asked the Opposition parties whether it was wrong to borrow loans for implementing development programmes such as construction of irrigation projects, power plants, double-bedroom houses and Mission Bhagiratha drinking water project which were aimed to better the lives of people.
In his reply to the general discussion on State Budget 2018-19 in the Assembly on Tuesday, he said the Government had spent ₹1.29 lakh crore on capital expenditure during the last four years as against ₹1.19 lakh crore spent during the previous 10 years before formation of Telangana.
The impact was visible in the simple fact that per capita income of the State stands at ₹1,75,534 now as against ₹1,12,764 of the country.
Mr. Rajender also explained how Prime Minister of the Nizam, Salar Jung, had borrowed money from the Great Britain for construction of railway lines in Hyderabad State in 1868 and asked the BJP members present in the House whether any of the States ruled by them or the Centre were not borrowing loans.
Stating that Telangana was second only to Punjab (99%) in spending the budget provisions for 2017-18, which stood at 95%, the Finance Minister explained “out of the total budget outlay of ₹1,49,640 crore the expenditure was ₹1,42,506 crore as per the revised estimates. He noted that the State had spent 62% of the total outlay in 10-month period in 2014-15, it had improved implementation of the budget to 84.33% in 2015-16 and 93.94% in 2016-17.
At the same time the tax devolution by the Centre was never in the indicated measure except in 2016-17 and there was also big gap in the indicated and actually received grants for centrally-sponsored schemes. He was critical of the Centre’s attitude stating that in spite of the NITI Aayog’s recommendation to support Mission Bhagiratha with ₹19,205 crore and Mission Kakatiya with ₹5,000 crore, nothing was given to Telangana.
In the information technology sector, the Minister stated that Telangana was in third position in the country behind Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in exports and expressed confidence that they would be vying for the top slot in the next few years. Against 3.23 lakh IT employees in 2014, their number had increased to about 4.32 lakh indicating the healthy growth.
He criticised the jealous attitude of some parties for not complimenting even the good work done by the Government. Mr. Rajender announced that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would soon launch a new self-employment scheme.
