Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who had represented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a moratorium on the loans to be repaid by the states to the Centre to help them tide over the currency crisis, on Sunday met Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal to discuss technical issues related to the Bhadradri Power plant and other issues related to Mr. Goel’s portfolio concerning Telangana.
Mr. Rao had arrived here on Friday night for a special interactive session with the Prime Minister on the situation triggered by the ban on Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 currency notes.
The irony of it all is that of the Rs. 63,000 crore plus that got converted into white thanks to the recent tax amnesty scheme of the Modi Government, Telangana alone accounted for Rs. 13,000 crore of the disclosure. Of this one individual is supposed to have benefited to the extent of Rs. 10,000 crore.
Unaccounted money
In the course of his meeting with Mr. Modi the Telangana Chief Minister made a plea that the old currency kept by women and housewives, as home contingency fund, should not be considered illegal. He also wanted the PM to direct that all private hospitals should accept old currency notes till normalcy returns.
In contrast to the cautious welcome extended by Mr. Rao on the currency ban, his counterpart in Andhra Pradesh had actually been a vocal supporter of the move by the Modi Government.
Official statement of the Telangana CM’s statement had quoted Mr. Rao as saying that all those having more than Rs 2.5 lakh as income or savings should not be treated as black money holders. “Instead, it should be referred as unaccounted money. These small and medium traders, businessmen and others in the unorganised sector should be given certain exemptions. They should be given one more chance to disclose their income and deposit the money in banks, thereby granting them one-time amnesty.” Earlier in the day the Telangana Finance Minister Etala Rajender, who also arrived here along with Chief Minister, attended the 5th meeting of the GST Council.
