Congress senior leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir has said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao cannot escape responsibility from the economic crisis now as he had supported all the faulty decisions of the Union government like Demonetisation and hurried implementation of the GST.
In a statement here, he said the government borrowed loans of nearly ₹ 3 lakh crore at high interest rates turning Telangana into a debt-ridden State. Despite the signs of economic slowdown the government still borrowed ₹ 17,500 crore from April to October this year.
“While the entire world was talking about economic slowdown, the Chief Minister had made false claims about zero impact. In September this year, the State budget for 2019-20 was cut down by over 30% after presenting the Vote on Account budget for ₹ 1,82,017 crore in February. It is now revised to ₹ 1,46,492 crore but still appears to be in no position to spend even that amount, Mr. Shabbir said.
Provisional figures
Citing unaudited provisional figures of Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG), he said as against the estimated tax revenues of ₹ 1.14 lakh crore during the year 2019-20, the collections up to October was just ₹ 51,355 crore. This includes ₹ 6,404.97 crore towards State’s share of Union Taxes.
Finding fault with the Chief Minister for writing a letter to Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman at the fag end of Parliament session, he demanded that an all-party delegation be taken to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narender Modi on the issue.
Collective decision
He said KCR should take collective decisions rather than individual decisions and said even the financial situation is reviewed without the Finance Minister Harish Rao.
Mr. Shabbir Ali welcomed the Chief Minister’s decision to reduce the expenditure and asked him to stop travelling by chartered flights. He also advised not to appoint chairpersons for the defunct corporations.
