Hyderabad, March 15, 2021: Former Minister & ex-Leader of Opposition in Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir has described the address by Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan to the State Legislature on Monday as factually incorrect and misleading.
“The Governor’s claims on Telangana’s annual growth rate, GSDP and Per Capita Income are factually incorrect. The Comptroller General & Auditor of India (CAG) and the 15th Finance Commission have clearly pointed out serious auditing errors in the budget figures of the Telangana Government. They have accused TS Govt of inflating figures to show high revenues. Therefore, any estimation on growth rate, GSDP or Per Capita Income based on those inflated figures will be erroneous and could not be trusted,” Shabbir Ali said in a media statement today.
“TS Govt has claimed of achieving 17.24% annual growth from 2014 to 2019. It also claimed that the GSDP has increased by 114.71% in the last six years. But it remained silent on over Rs. 3 lakh crore loans it took from various agencies in the last six years. Almost 20% of the State’s revenues are being spent on interest and repayment of loans. Why did the Governor not mention anything about the State’s debt and its impact on taxpayers?” he asked.
Shabbir Ali also ridiculed the claim in the Governor’s address that the State’s Per Capita Income has increased from Rs. 1,12,162 in 2013-14 to Rs. 2,28,216 in 2019-20. If this is true, then the Telangana Govt should declare that it has eradicated poverty and none of its citizens deserve any subsidy or pension. “Governor Dr. Soundararajan has only read the speech approved by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his Cabinet. Although she is not at fault, she should’ve got these figures cross-checked from experts,” he said.
Further, the Congress leader advised CM KCR to stop making fake claims on the State’s economy as such claims have done immense damage to Telangana so far.
“Telangana State is now seven years old. It was a revenue surplus State at the time of its formation in 2014 with huge resources. Today it is in huge debts of over Rs. 3 lakh crore due to the wrong policies of KCR Govt,” he said.
Shabbir Ali said that the Governor, in her address to the State Legislature, has claimed that Rs. 2.30 lakh crore was spent as capital expenditure from 2014 to 2020. “The KCR Government has been tampering with the budget figures since beginning. If the average annual revenue of Telangana through taxes and other resources was Rs. 1 lakh crore, then it must have got at least Rs. 6 lakh crore. Further, it borrowed loans of Rs. 3 lakh crore in the last six years. Therefore, the TS Govt must release a White Paper giving complete break-up of how it had spent nearly Rs. 9-10 crore in the last six years,” he said.
The Congress leader said that the Governor’s addresses did not cover lot of other crucial issues including rising unemployment, over 1.91 lakh vacancies in government departments, fitment to employees, recruitment on 50,000 posts as promised by CM KCR during MLC elections campaign, etc.,
Shabbir Ali said that the Governor’s address was full of factually incorrect figures on the economy and vague description of State Government’s policies.