Hyderabad The Telangana Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Tuesday claimed that Centre owes over Rs 1 lakh crore to the state in the form of pending funds, grants, and compensation.

Taking part in a short discussion on "Central government dual policy in implementation of FRBM Act - Impact on state progress", the Finance minister said if the pending funds (Rs 1,05,812 crore) are released, the Telangana government would not even be required to raise new debt.

He told the Assembly that with the pending funds, the state can clear one-third of its Rs 3.29 lakh crore debt. The Centre's unilateral decisions and imposition of restrictions against the state to obtain loans under Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) limits is having an adverse impact on the state, Harish Rao alleged.

It is worth mentioning here that the Union Finance Ministry has cut Telangana’s open market borrowing limit by Rs 19,000 crore for this financial year. This means that the State will now be able to raise only Rs 34,970 crore in 2022-23, as against the Rs 53,970 crore Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) loan proposed in the Budget.

He also dismissed the criticism by BJP on the state's debts and claimed that unlike the Union government which obtained loans to repay its loans, the state government spent the borrowings on capital expenditure and created assets.

#Telangana Finance Minister T. Harish Rao on Tuesday claimed that the Union government owes over Rs 1 lakh crore to the state in the form of pending funds, grants, and compensation. pic.twitter.com/2jHLaBiiv1
— IANS (@ians_india) September 13, 2022

Harish Rao told the Assembly that as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report, Telangana's debt rank is 23rd in the country.Harish Rao also rubbished the allegations by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other BJP leaders over the per capita debt on each citizen of the state.

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Meanwhile, the Telangana Assembly Speaker Pocharama Srinivas Reddy adjourned the Assembly sine die immediately after short discussion on “Failure of Central Government in Implementing the Assurances under AP Reorganisation Act in Telangana State” on Tuesday evening.