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Telangana IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao has alleged that the Narendra Modi government is ‘inimical, un-cooperative, and does not believe in the spirit of federalism’. Alleging that the BJP government has not kept the promises that the then union government made at the time of the formation of the State in 2014, Rama Rao said the States were being denied their rightful share as the Centre was keeping all the funds collected in the form of cesses.
Delivering the Abhay Tripathi Memorial lecture on the ‘Challenges of being a young State’ here on Friday, he said they always talked about ‘Team India’ and ‘Cooperative Federalism’, but it’s all lip service.
“They don’t really believe in any of that. They would want the hegemony of the union government to continue. They would want States to be at their mercy,” he said.
‘No hope in union govt’
He said the State has lost hope in the Union Government. “We will ensure that he is voted out at any cost in the next election. We did not depend on the union government or we did not depend on any of their endowments,” he asserted.
Stating that the BJP government was focusing only divisive politics, Rama Rao blamed the government for high prices of petrol and diesel. “They are increasing cesses and duties and expecting us to reduce the taxes locally,” he said.
He also criticised the BJP government for appointing active politicians as the Governors of States. “The Governors have literally become an impediment to growth. They return a bill from a democratically elected assembly and they sit on it without any valid reason,” he said.
He cited the example of Tamilisai Soundarajan’s appointment as the Governor of Telangana, who kept a few bills with her for months, forcing the State government to move the Supreme Court for its intervention.
Defends raising debts
Relating the achievements of the BRS government in the last nine years, the minister has defended the State’s decision to raise debt to invest on developmental programmes. Citing the examples of the US, Jagan and Germany where the debt: GDP ratio is very high, he said the State leveraged its financial muscle to raise debt to invest in power, irrigation, drinking water and industrial infrastructure.
He said the State strides in agricultural output, IT exports, power situation and per capita income, proving naysayers wrong.
“From a power deficit State, we turned power surplus. We used to procure 68 lakh tonnes of paddy in 2014. Now have become the number one paddy producer in the country with 3.5 crore tonnes,” he said.
Earlier Richa Mishra Tripathi, Senior Associate Editor of businessline, spoke on the lecture series. The maiden lecture last year was delivered by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
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