Telangana state budget a bunch of lies: BJP

Hyderabad: BJP State president K Laxman has come down heavily on Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and termed the Telangana Budget-2020-21 a bunch of lies and allocation of Rs 10,000 crore to Hyderabad an election stunt ahead of the GHMC elections.

Addressing media here on Monday, the BJP leader said that the budget does not reflect the promises made in the TRS election manifesto.

"It is full of lies and let down farmers, unemployed, government employees, workers, BCs, OBCs, Sc and STs," he added.

The budget has a big number with meagre expenditure. It is not a "realistic budget but filled with fudged figures," he added.

The budget proposals show a deficit of Rs 33,191 crore but it fails to speak how the gap will be filled.

On welfare front, the budget is silent on its promises of KG to PG free education, delay in the payment of fee reimbursement, timeline to complete and allocate double bedroom houses, increase in the retirement age and PRC to government staff, reasons for cutting down allocations to welfare funding to the SC and BCs, education, health and irrigation.

Also, the budget did not say a word about the funds given by the Centre for the development of the railway, national highways, rural and urban development etc, he said. Laxman criticised the TRS chief for cheating the unemployed on providing unemployment allowance.

Also, 90 per cent of the Rs 10,751 crore allocated to education goes only to the salaries. Further, allocating of meagre funds to Palamuru-Ranga Reddy irrigation project causes gross injustice to the erstwhile Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda districts. He also asked the government why it has not allocated Rs 500 crore of its share for the second phase of MMTS.

The government had allocated Rs 1,810 core for unemployment allowance in the last budget but it did not spend a single rupees. The TRS government is cheating employees and students who have played a key role in getting the separate state of Telangana, he said.

Further, the government claims economic slowdown but at the same time claims good growth rates and an increase in the revenues. It shows the contradictory claims on the part of the government.

Also, spending of the proposed capital expenditure of Rs 22,000 crore in the current budget is doubtful as the government had cut down drastically earlier.