Telangana Legislature session to discuss Centre's cuts on state revenue

Hyderabad, Nov 24:  The Winter Session of the Telangana Legislature will be held next month to discuss and inform the people of state of how the Centre imposed cuts in revenue due to Telangana for current fiscal 2022-23.

Both the houses of the state legislature will meet for one week.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday directed Finance Minister T. Harish Rao and Legislative Affairs Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy to take measures in this regard.

The two ministers will meet the Assembly Speaker and the Legislative Council Chairman to discuss and finalise the dates for the session.

According to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), due to the restrictions imposed by the BJP government at the Centre, Telangana suffered a shortfall of Rs 40,000 crore in revenue for 2022-23. This resulted in denial of funding for various schemes being implemented in the state.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, emphasised the need to explain to people from the Assembly as to how the restrictions imposed by the Centre dented the state's revenue.

By such measures, the Union government is obstructing Telangana's development, it said.

The Centre declares the FRBM limit for every state before beginning of financial year to enable the state to mobilise financial resources. For financial year 2022-23, the Centre announced Rs 54,000 crore FRBM limit for Telangana. However, this limit was suddenly reduced to Rs 39,000 crore. The funds receivable by the state came down by Rs 15,000 crore.

States which financially perform get an additional relaxation of 0.5 per cent in FRBM limit. However, the Centre imposed the restriction that this will be available to Telangana if it implements reforms in power sector. It tried to force the state to implement anti-farmer measures, the statement said.

The Chief Minister has already conveyed to the Centre that despite all the hardships, Telangana will not implement reforms which harm the interests of farmers and agriculture.

As a result of this the state lost another Rs 6,000 crore. Thus, the state was denied Rs 21,000 crore due to the Centre's wrong policies, the CMO said.

Not stopping at that, the Centre also stopped Rs 20,000 crore funds due to the state. Thus, Telangana suffered a revenue loss of Rs 40,000 crore, it added.