RBI hopeful Telangana will waive arrears

Hyderabad: The Telangana commercial taxes minister has promised to refer the issue of payment of VAT by the RBI to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Mr Talasani Yadav said, “The representation given by RBI has been sent to the CM. Since it involves arrears amounting to Rs 200 crore, the decision on waiving this amount has to be taken at the CM’s-level.” RBI officials are hopeful that the government will waive the arrears soon.

The TS government had to struggle for four months to get back the money deducted by the RBI from its account with the Chief Minister, ministers and officials making several representations to the Centre. In fact, the TS government had even served legal notices on RBI in July for directly transferring the amount to the I-T department from its account without prior notice.

The TS government had argued that the Telangana State Beverages Corporation Ltd had nothing to do with the arrears of APBCL for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 assessment years in undivided AP as it was the fault of the then AP government for not paying the taxes. Following the Centre’s intervention, the amount was credited back in September.