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KCR urges centre to relax Telangana’s borrowing limits

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday met Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi and urged to relax the limits on borrowing loans to enable the state to raise money through extra borrowings.

While Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM) restricts the total loan amount that can be availed by a state to 3 per cent of the state’s gross state domestic product (GSDP), KCR reiterated his requested that the limit be raised to 3.5 per cent.

“The 14th Finance Commission in its recommendations mentioned that the states that are revenue surplus can be permitted to access market borrowings at 3.5 per cent of the GSDP by raising the ceiling of 3 per cent as per the FRBM criteria. I request to accordingly increase the FRBM limit to Telangana to 3.5 per cent as the state satisfies all the criteria laid down by the finance commission,” said KCR in a memorandum he submitted to Jaitley. KCR’s appeal to the Centre is a reiteration of his earlier request in August this year.

At that time, he had also demanded that the Centre grant Telangana a special package. According to a press release issued by the chief minister’s office earlier this July, Rao had at the time met Niti Aayog officials and had asked them for relaxation in FRBM cap.

During his meeting with Jaitley on Tuesday, KCR also asked for central assistance for two of Telangana’s flagship programmes – Mission Kakatiya and Jalaharam – for the development of irrigation and drinking water supply respectively.

The chief minister also asked for more funds for the development of backward districts in his state. In a separate meeting with road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, the chief minister urged the Centre to upgrade six state highways into national highways including Hyderabad-Narasapur- Medak- Bhainsa and Hyderabad- Bijapur Road via Moinabad up to Karnataka border. KCR urged Gadkari to sanction Rs 150 crore for repairing the national highway stretches that pass through Hyderabad.

Source: The Times of India

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