TS finances intact: Etala

State has sufficient resources for all flagship programmes

Hyderabad: The finances of Telangana State are on the right track. While the tax revenues are on the expected lines, on the expenditure side also Telangana State has provided sufficient resources for all the flagship programmes said the Finance Minister Eatala Rajender.

Talking to media after a review meeting with all the major revenue earning departments, Rajender said the State’s own tax revenues as per the Budgeted Estimates are Rs.46, 495 crore. The total receipts from April to July was Rs 12,096 crore which amounts to 26 per cent of the total estimated receipts for the year.

Rajender said in the first three and half months it is expected that the revenues would be around 28 per cent of the budgeted estimates. The Stamps and Registration department has shown impressive growth of more than 25 per cent over the last years receipts whereas the overall increase in receipts compared to last year is around 10 per cent.

However, Etala said efforts were on to further increase the revenue receipts from Excise, Stamps and Registration, sale of land, Transport and other departments. The minister said that the Public Debt of the State is in line with the FRBM limits i.e., at Rs.6, 150 crore. “Overall the State has shown an impressive performance in terms of revenues.

The only areas in which revenues are yet to pick up are from the regularisation of land and it was indicated during the review meeting that this is also likely to be achieved during the next two quarters,” he said On the expenditure side, normally the first quarters has less expenditure as the departments are still grounding the schemes.

However, because of careful planning, Telangana State has ensured that the programmes are grounded and sufficient resources are made available. He said the total revenues are at 33.5% of the annual estimated revenues which is more that what is estimated.

Eatala said the State government took Rs 1,500 crore loans as per RBI norms and can take Rs 500 crore more without opting to means and ways provision. Compared to Madhya Pradesh, Telangana State got 1.5 per cent less rate of interest for the loans obtained, he said.

The minister asked the opposition parties to know the facts before making damaging statements that the government had pushed a revenue surplus state into debts. Earlier, on Wednesday, leader of opposition in Legislative Council Shabbir Ali said the mismanagement and mal-administration by TRS Government has pushed Telangana into a financial crisis.

He claimed that the State not only lacks funds to spend on welfare and development schemes, but it is also unable to pay salaries and pensions on time. The notifications for 25,000 jobs, which KCR promised to issue in July, too have been delayed due to financial crisis, he said.

At the time of formation of Telangana on June 2, 2014, the State was considered rich with a revenue surplus of Rs. 7,500 crore. However, in the last 14 months, the situation has reversed and now the State Government is struggling hard to borrow about Rs 5,000 crore to pay salaries, pension and clear crop loan waiver dues, Shabbir said.

He said the State Government had recently borrowed Rs 1400 crore from the open market for 10 years @ 8% interest by participating in the State Development Fund auctions held by RBI. He also held KCR's ‘negligent attitude’ responsible for the deduction of Rs 1,274 crore by the Reserve Bank of India towards IT liability of AP Beverages Corporation Limited.