Congress slams Telangana budget, terms it ‘funny’

Says bloated figures clearly show the government's lack of clarity on planning

Hyderabad: The Congress, the main Opposition in Telangana, ripped apart the TRS government on the budget proposals in Legislative Assembly and Council on Tuesday. While Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy termed the budget as a ‘funny budget’, Deputy Floor leader in Council Md Shabbir Ali accused the TRS government of cheating farmers on crop loan waiver promise.

Participating in the debate on the annual financial statement in the Assembly, Jana Reddy said the presentation of Rs 1 lakh crore budget for 10 months was ‘unrealistic’.

It seems the budget figures were inflated giving an impression that Telangana was competing with Andhra Pradesh in the budget allocations. Jana Reddy pointed out that the fiscal deficit had been shown at 4.79 per cent of the GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) and the government was planning to borrow Rs 18,000 crore from banks whereas the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act would allow to obtain loans only within 3 per cent of the GSDP, which accounts Rs 11,000 crore only.

The proposal to get Rs 21,000 crore as grant-in-aid from the Centre received strong criticism from the CLP leader. He sought to know on what grounds the Centre would allocate such huge aid when the united AP got only Rs 8,900 crore in the last fiscal. The bloated figures clearly showed the government's lack of clarity on the planning, he said.

The plan to mobilise Rs 6,500 crore by selling government lands would be a futile effort as the land prices crashed to an all-time low in Telangana. It seemed the government was unclear about land distribution scheme. He questioned how the government would implement the two-bed room house scheme for the poor with a meagre Rs 119 crore budget proposal. Accusing the TRS government of cheating the farmers on the promise crop loan waiver up to Rs 1 lakh, Congress MLC Md Shabbir Ali said the government delayed the release of the first installment of Rs 4,250 crore which could have provided relief to farmers. The delay resulted in many farmers losing crop insurance.

Jana stuns House with his speech
Hyderabad: Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader K Jana Reddy's well-prepared speech caught treasury benches off-guard in the Assembly session held on Tuesday. During his one-and-a-half-hour speech, he raised valid questions regarding implementation of government schemes like free land distribution to SCs. It put TRS on the back foot so much so that the ruling party tried to seek information regarding contents of his speech in the afternoon.

Sources informed that the senior Congress leader worked on this for almost 10 days taking assistance of experts to ascertain whether budgetary allocations were enough to implement government schemes. Meanwhile, media personnel could not stop talking high of Jana Reddy's speech. Many felt that it was probably his best speech on the floor of the House at least in the last decade.