Stating that they have got authority on governance within six months after the formation of separate Telangana State and set the economic system in a proper way, Finance Minister Etela Rajender said the Central government, which didn’t care Telangana State in the beginning, was praising the infant State by inviting it. Even Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitly himself stated that the Party, which ran the Telangana movement, was doing good governance, he reminded and said that the only State got laurels in a short period was Telangana. The small States only developed across the nation and expressed hope that Andhra Pradesh State too develops in the same manner, he predicted.
Etela participated as the chief guest in the meeting organised by the Commercial Tax Department aiming to find the ways to increase the revenue of the state here on Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, Etela said the Commercial Tax department’s role was pivotal one in gathering revenue to the State. The Finance Department only prepares plans as to how to spend the money and it will not have the plans on as to how to increase the revenue of the State. The Finance Department works depending upon Commercial Department. There were several doubts in the minds of many people before formation of the state that whether the Telangana state would sustain or not whether the state would develop or not. But, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao assigned the responsibilities to the efficient officials. The officials too retained the belief of the Chief Minister, he said and congratulated Principal Secretary Somesh Kumar and Commercial Tax Commissioner Anil on the occasion. The officials from top to bottom sought creation of separate Telangana state. The officials believed in the development only with the creation of separate Telangana state. That belief only leading the Telangana state government, Etela said.
The Finance Minister said that several qualitative changes took place in the state only after the creation of separate state. The quest of development increased among the people of two Telugu states, he opined and said that the Telangana state achievers were thinking it as a great victory. The expectations among the people were increased and the pressure also increased on the government to perform suiting the expectations of the people, he said. There won’t be this much of pressure in general. The TRS government was striving to fulfil the aspirations of the people. The state government achieved progress in regard to gathering funds. The government also stepping ahead in regard to water and efforts were on to achieve development in creation of employment. The creation of employment linked to funds and the steps were taking up in that direction, he stated.
Etela said the state government was expecting Rs 3,500 crore from Commercial taxes in the year 2017-18. There was no need to collect the taxes forcefully and atrociously. People came to know through demonetization that nobody will have the authority on the money they have in their houses after GST Bill. There was a feeling that their money was safe in case they pay the taxes, he said and hoped that the number of tax payers will increase definitely. He suggested to the Commercial Taxes department officials to increase the efficiency of the department by using state-of-the-art technology to collect the taxes and made it clear that the government will stand by the officials.
Principal Secretary Somesh Kumar, Commercial Tax Commissioner Anil, Additional Commissioners Revathi Rohini, MS Reddy and Joint Commissioner Amrutha laxmi were present. (NSS)