Meanwhile, DyCM Bhatti Vikramarka is expected to explain how Telangana, which had a surplus when the BRS took over in 2014, slipped into debts.
Published Dec 19, 2023 | 6:16 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 19, 2023 | 6:17 PM
Former Telangana finance minister T Harish Rao. (TrsHarish/Facebook)
The BRS Legislature Party (BRSLP) has made an unusual request to the Speaker of the Telangana Assembly.
It has asked permission to deliver a presentation to the House to offer its version of how its government had run Finance, Irrigation and Energy Departments before the Congress came to power in the recent Assembly elections.
Former finance minister and Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao, in a letter to the Speaker on Tuesday, 19 December, said the party was making the request after it came to know that the ruling Congress was planning to make a similar presentation on the three sectors.
Harish Rao wrote the letter to the Speaker with the first session of the third Legislative Assembly of Telangana all set to resume on Wednesday.
He said that the party felt it would be necessary to explain to the people its version of how the three departments were run, in case the current government decided to use its presentation to put forth its point of view.
గౌరవ సభాపతి గారికి,
తెలంగాణ శాసనసభ,
హైదరాబాద్.ఆర్యా!
విషయము: శాసనసభలో పవర్ పాయింట్ ప్రజెంటేషన్ చేయుటకు భారత రాష్ట్ర సమితి పార్టీకి అనుమతి మంజూరు చేయుటకు వినతి.
రేపటి నుంచి జరిగే శాసనసభ సమావేశాలలో ఆర్థిక, సాగునీటి మరియు విద్యుత్ అంశాలపై రాష్ట్ర ప్రభుత్వం పవర్ పాయింట్… pic.twitter.com/y9DWom5btR
— BRS Party (@BRSparty) December 19, 2023
The state government has been contemplating whitepapers on the three departments to put the Opposition BRS on the mat.
Congress sources said that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Deputy Chief Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who currently holds the Finance portfolio, are expected to give a presentation to facilitate a discussion on the performance of the three departments under the BRS rule.
The officials have already been asked to prepare whitepapers with details of the revenue receipts and expenditures during the last 10 years.
Vikramarka is expected to explain how Telangana, which had a surplus when the BRS took over in 2014, slowly slipped into the morass of debts.
The government also appears keen on explaining how the energy sector came to be bogged down in debts of up to ₹81,000 crore over the last 10 years.
The state government is even contemplating to accord statutory status to the six guarantees the Congress had promised to the people in this session itself.
It is a dicey situation for the government as the previous regime had fully exhausted the borrowing limit for this financial year (2023-24).
The former BRS government borrowed ₹35,000 crore in this financial year, leaving little leeway for the current government to raise fresh loans.
Vikramraka recently said that the accumulated debts of the state were over ₹5 lakh crore, including the guarantees that the government had given to the state’s public sector undertakings to avail loans.
