Hyderabad: Telangana State Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday met Union home minister Rajnath Singh and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi.
Mr Rao thanked the home minister for taking steps to approve the newly formed zonal system in Telangana to ensure 95 per cent reservation for locals in state government jobs. He requested Singh to expedite the process of amendment to the Presidential Order and issue a gazette notification bringing the new zonal system into force at the earliest.
During his meeting with Mr Jaitley, the CM submitted three letters seeking release of Rs 450 crore towards the fourth installment of special assistance for the development of backward districts in IS under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.
Mr Rao also requested for increasing the annual borrowing limit by an additional 0.50 per cent of GSDP as recommended by the Fourteenth Finance Commission. He asked the Centre to release interest subvention arrears of Rs 339 crore towards the Self Help Groups bank-linkage programme. In his representation to Mr Jaitley, the CM stated, “The AP State Reorganisation Act provides for special assistance for the development of backward districts in the successor states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The first, second and third installments of assistance were released amounting to Rs 450 crore each at Rs 50 crore for nine districts of Telangana. The utilisation certificates for the amounts released were also submitted. The fourth installment is yet to be released.”
“Under the Backward Regions Grant Fund, nine out of the then 10 districts of Telangana were considered as backward. With the reorganisation, the number of districts now stands at 31. With the formation of the new districts, the developmental and administrative expenditure has considerably increased putting immense pressure on state finances. NITI Aayog had also addressed the Department of Expendi-ture, ministry of finance recommending the release of Rs 450 crore to the state. I would, therefore, request you to release the fourth installment of special assistance at the earliest.”
With reference to raising the annual borrowing limit for TS by an additional 0.50 per cent of GSDP as recommended by the 14th Finance Commi-ssion, the CM in his letter to Mr Jaitley said, “The Centre had conveyed its consent under article 293(3) of the Constitution of India to the state government to raise market borrowings, computed at thee per cent of the GSDP provisionally for the first nine months of the financial year 2018-19.”
“The state continues to be revenue surplus for the fourth consecutive year. Since the state has fulfilled the conditions, I request you to consider the borrowing limit of the state be raised,” he said.
