TRS Govt borrowing Rs. 59 Cr per day: Uttam

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President Capt. N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has accused the TRS Government of pushing the entire Telangana State into a debt trap with mismanagement of its finances by doubling the per capita debt.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that Telangana State had inherited debts of Rs. 61,710 Crore at the time of its formation on June 2, 2014. With a population of 3.5 Crore, as per 2011 Census, the per capita debt was Rs. 17,626.72. “With its utter mismanagement and immature approach, TRS Government had accumulated huge debts in a period of just 21 months. It increased the debts to Rs. 83,845 Crore in 2014-15 and they got accumulated to Rs. 100,707 Crore in 2015-16. Finance Minister Eatala Rajender, in his budget speech for Telangana State for 2016-17, has proposed to borrow another Rs. 23,113 Crore. This will increase the per capita debt in Telangana State to Rs. 35,373.72 while taking the total borrowings to Rs. 123,821.49 crore,” he said.

The TPCC Chief said that the TRS Government has increased the debt on each citizen every passing day. “Besides the debts which we inherited due to bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, by the end of 2016-17, TRS Govt would be borrowing additional loans of more than Rs. 62,111 Crore since June 2, 2014. At an average, Rs. 60 crore would have been borrowed each day to run the government for a total of 1043 days (till March 31, 2017). The present average of borrowing during the last 653 days is Rs. 59 Crore,” he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the State Government has always kept the people, including the opposition parties, in dark about the real financial situation. “Our demands for White Paper on State’s Finances or at least an all-party on the issue were rejected. It is strange that more than the Finance Minister, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao himself got involved in managing State’s finances.

He pointed out that Eatala Rajender himself had tried to wash off his hands from the deteriorating financial condition of the State by making these remarks in his budget speech, “In an unprecedented manner, the Hon’ble Chief Minister has himself reviewed the working of each department, the relevance of each scheme in its minutest detail and the resource potential.”

The TPCC Chief said that the Congress party would raise the issue both in and out the Assembly and would not allow TRS Government to push Telangana State and its citizens into a debt trap. (INN)