Hyderabad: Union Minister Bandi Sanjay on Thursday said that the Centre this time had allocated Rs 1.08 lakh crore to Telangana in the form of taxes and schemes in the Union Budget.

In a press conference here, Bandi Sanjay said that it was a blatant lie to say that Telangana has been treated unfairly in the Union Budget. The Congress leaders are ignorant and blind. They are spreading misinformation against the Centre just to divert money on six guarantees. “Congress is following the path of BRS. Are we ready to discuss what the Centre has done and what the state has done in terms of villages and towns in Telangana? What has the Centre given to Telangana? We are ready for a public debate on who did injustice,” said Sanjay.

The Union Minister listed out the budget allocations including Rs 29,899 crore were allocated in the form of tax devolution, which is 10 per cent increase in funds compared to last year, Rs 21,075 crore have been allocated in the form of grants, Rs 5,336 crore have been allocated for the development of railways, which is 20 times more than during the UPA regime. In this year's budget, a loan of 2,500 crore was going to be given to Telangana for infrastructure and development, Rs 28,302 crore were allocated for the development of roads, trains and aviation sectors in Telangana and out of this, Rs 15,640 crore have been allocated for the expansion of national highways, Rs 10,285 crore have been allocated for the development of power, energy and irrigation sectors in Telangana. He said that employees were given tax exemption of up to Rs 12,75,000 in the budget. “We are going to give credit cards of up to Rs 5 lakh to each farmer. We are going to spend Rs 1,50,000 crores under MSME Credit Boost to increase employment for the youth of the country including Telangana. We have decided to provide custom credit cards up to Rs 5 lakh to small traders. This time, we are setting up a fund of Rs 10,000 crore to encourage start-ups. We are going to provide healthcare coverage to one crore gig workers under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. We are going to provide term loans of Rs 2 crore each to 5 lakh women who are going to start businesses and industries for the first time,” said Sanjay, adding it was not right that funds were not given to a state just because its name is not mentioned in the national budget.

Sanjay said that it was Congress and BRS parties who did injustice to Telangana in the Krishna water share. KCR is the first traitor who did injustice to Telangana by colluding with AP. It was Congress and BRS parties who delayed the construction of the SSCBC project. These two parties should publicly apologise to the people of Telangana. He said that the caste census was wrong, not because of caste multiplication errors. If there are 3.95 crore Aadhaar cards, how can the population be 3.7 crore, he asked? People are ready to teach Congress a lesson with six guarantees as their main weapons, he said.