Union budget disappointed Telangana state government

Hyderabad: The Union budget for the financial year 2015-16 presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday was a big disappointment for the Telangana state government, which was looking forward to a host of benefits for the youngest state of the country.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has submitted a long wish-list to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley. A representation was submitted to Prime Minister Narendar Modi seeking national status for the Pranahita-Chevella irrigation project (being redesigned as Kaleshwaram project) by allotting Rs 70,000 crore, and relaxation of the FRBM norms to secure more loans.

Mr Rao had also made a special appeal to Mr.Modi for sanctioning Rs 30,000 crore for development of backward areas in TS. The was also not considered.

The only consolation was mention in the budget for the state is Rs 1 crore for the tribal university, Rs 20 crore for IIT-Hyderabad, Rs 15 crore for INCOIS, Rs 62 crore for the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Rs 60 crore for the Advance Research Centre. The share of TS in Central taxes also remained more or less the
same at Rs 13,955 crore.

S.Venugopala Chary, the TS government’s representative in New Delhi said. “The Budget is very disappointing for Telangana. None of our major proposals was considered. The state had been promised several projects in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. However, they were kept pending. This is the third
Budget of the NDA government and all bifurcation- related issues still remain unaddressed.”

TRS floor leader in the Lok Sabha A.P. Jitender Reddy said “We have waited for two years over the pending bifurcation-related issues. Despite this, the Centre ignored these issues even in its third Budget. We will bring pressure on the Centre to include some of the pending issues before the passage of the Budget.”

TRS deputy floor leader B. Vinod Kumar said, “We did our best to secure national status for Pranahita project. It’s disappointing that the Centre ignored it again.”

Ammanabolu Prakash, president of Telangana State Federation of Textile Associations said.“Traders play a pivotal role in the economy, paying a variety of taxes to the State and the Central governments. They expected some concessions, but the Finance Minister has disappointed them by not granting concessions or allocating funds to improve their trade to compete with the global market.”