Claiming that Telangana’s economy is in the pink of health due to the initiatives taken during the last 10 years, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao on Wednesday asked the Congress government not to indulge in politics and curse the state.
Speaking on the Appropriation Bill in the Assembly, Rama Rao disputed the claims of the Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka with regard to the overall economy, especially debts.
Citing statistics from Socio-Economic Outlook and Budget 2024-25 on economic indicators, he slammed the government for trying to malign the previous government with false claims.
He found fault with the ministers for calling the state cancer or AIDS patient. “This is the state we achieved after a struggle. Let us not indulge in politics and curse our own state,” he said.
Reminding Congress leaders that elections were over, the BRS leader asked them to run the government effectively and not to malign the state.
He recalled that when Telangana was formed there was uncertainty and then chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh Kiran Kumar Reddy had predicted in the Assembly that Telangana would plunge into darkness. Doubts were expressed on whether the people of Telangana would be able to govern their own state effectively. It was also said that the state would not attract new investment and even the existing investors would leave and that the state would slip into Maoist and communal violence, he said.
Citing statistics from the Socio-Economic Survey and Budget, the BRS leader said the state was ahead of many states in key economic indicators.
He mentioned that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), which was Rs 4 lakh crore in 2014, increased to 14.64 lakh crore in 2023-24.
The per capita income grew from Rs 1,24,104 in 2014-15 to Rs 3,47,299 in 2023-24, which is Rs 1.64 lakh higher than the national per capita income. Telangana is the largest state with the highest per capita income in the country.
The state contribution to GDP increased from 4.1 per cent in 2014 to 5 per cent in 2023-24.
KTR, as Rama Rao is popularly known, also mentioned that with 74 per cent development expenditure, Telangana is at the number one position in the country.
He said Telangana’s committed expenditure comprising salaries, pensions and interest payment is 47 paise and the remaining 53 paise are available for development. The national average of committed expenditure is 56 paise.
With 80 per cent state’s own tax revenues, Telangana is one of the top three states. He pointed out that the revenue surplus in 2014-15 was Rs 369 crores while the revenue surplus during 2022-23 was Rs 5,944 crores. The revenue surplus in this budget (2024-25) is Rs. 209 crores.
He asked why the Finance Minister has been repeatedly saying that the state has become bankrupt and is borrowing money even to pay salaries to government employees.
Bhatti Vikramarka intervened to ask if it was not a fact that from 2021 to 2023-24, there was a delay of 15 to 20 days in paying salaries. He asked where the money was diverted.
KTR clarified that the delay was due to the impact of Covid on the economy. He said despite the crisis, the state government ensured the release of money for paying social security pensions, investment support to farmers and other welfare schemes.
He said when Telangana was formed its revenue was Rs. 46,000 crore and the same has now gone up to Rs. 1.20 lakh crore.
Rejecting the claim of the Congress government that the previous government pushed a revenue surplus state into a debt trap, KTR asked it to show the assets created by the previous government along with the debts.
Alleging that the Congress government is trying to mislead the house with wrong statistics, KTR said debts of only Rs 3.85 lakh crores were raised during the BRS rule.
He said worldover loans are given depending on the capacity to repay and pointed out that Telangana’s debt to GSDP ratio is only 27.8 per cent. There are 14-15 states which have higher debt-GSDP ratios while the Central government’s debt-GDP ratio is 59 per cent.
The share of debts in the state’s GSDP was 14.4 per cent in 2014 and the same has gone up to 27.8 per cent in 2022-23.
“Borrowings for investment in productive sectors are not wrong. It’s an investment in the future,” he said.
Citing the debt-to-GDP ratio of the US, Japan and Singapore, KTR said it was not wrong for a growing and aspirational economy to raise debts.