Industries and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao has asserted that the State government is incurring capital expenditure for improving infrastructure and improving productivity of the assets for future generations.
“Investments on infrastructure should be looked at as capital expenditure, not debt. This is the investment for the future,” he said.
Replying to a question during the Question Hour in the Assembly on Monday, Mr. Rama Rao dismissed the charges that State was being pushed into debt trap by the present dispensation. The boom in economic activity witnessed at present was because of the investment made in the infrastructure and value being created, he said.
He said the government had decided to take a loan of ₹5,900 crore and an in principle agreement had been reached with the SBI which agreed to give term loan for meeting the targets set under the Strategic Road Development Programme.
To a query, he said debt servicing for the proposed loan would be to the tune of ₹296 crore a year and the government took steps to ensure that the GHMC was not burdened on account of the loan.
He asserted that the government had deployed new technologies for road development besides introducing transferable development rights that saved ₹3,000 crore to the GHMC. The State was the first to create TDR bank and the launch of SRDP and related works were follow up of brain storming with experts for over three years.
In all, 22 works under SRDP had been completed with an estimated ₹1,946.9 crore and 24 works (21 by the GHMC and 3 by other departments) were under progress at a cost of ₹5,693.51 crore. The Minister said a detailed time schedule had been fixed for the completion of the works.
Responding to a query by MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, he said works worth ₹1,545 crore had been taken up in Charminar zone and were under progress.
Some of the works were delayed because of the agency, but they would be fast tracked in the coming days. Simultaneously, plans were being prepared for the second phase of the SRDP programme, the Minister said.
