Not vengeful against anyone, Govt intends holistic development: Revanth Reddy

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Wednesday said that Telangana was a State with a surplus on the revenue side in 2014 when the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, but the financial mismanagement of the BRS Government made it a deficit State unable to pay salaries to its employees.

Replying to AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi’s take on the White Paper submitted by the new Government on the floor of the house on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said that the data in the white paper was selective to highlight certain sections of revenue and expenditure.

“For instance, we used CAG data for revenue expenditure, RBI for loans and advances, salaries and pensions from CAG for regular employees, and budgetary expenditure from Budget information,” the CM said.

He explained that RBI sent the daily revenue and expenditure status of each State to that State’s finance secretary. “On the day the State was formed according to the 2014-15 RBI report, there was 303 days surplus with the new State. After that, it started diminishing under the BRS rule and the Finance Minister Harish Rao. In 2020-21 there was 122 days surplus, in 2021-22 there was only 57 days surplus, by 2022-23 there was 37 days surplus and now in 23-24 up to November there is only 30 days surplus,” Revanth Reddy said.

He added that the diminishing surplus only meant that the Congress gave BRS a surplus State, but the BRS partly under Harish Rao as Finance Minister dragged the State to a stage of begging.

“We can't act as if we are rich, today we can't even pay salaries. When we can't even afford to pay welfare and regular payments, the Government employees too will go bankrupt. Their individual CIBIL score will get tainted. The past Government created such a scenario,” Revanth Reddy pointed out.

He said that he was not trying to escape from the poll-time promises by releasing a white paper on finances. “These facts are unpalatable to some. But I have to call a spade a spade. The white paper is not released to belittle past Government, or to find an escape route from fulfilling promises,” he explained to members.

He also clarified that all the data put before the Assembly were collected by very responsible officers who collect and submit reports in a prescribed format. “We are not vengeful. Several Officers meet me to greet me. Like Harish Rao met and greeted then CM YSR, I also tried to meet PM Narendra Modi through G Kishan Reddy for the sake of the State,” he added.

He declared that the State Government would also come up with white papers on power and irrigation. “When someone takes responsibility, they must do this exercise. We are not someone who sits at home and formulate laws, We, want to present it before all the 119 MLAs before making anything a law,” he said.

He said that the Congress Government decided to bring the Secretariat and the Praja Bhavan close to the people so that the aspirations of the people were reflected in the laws that the Government would make.

The Chief Minister said that very soon he would meet the MLAs from Hyderabad city and take their opinions in making it a world-class City. He said that the Government would also call for an all-party meeting and also hold meetings with parties such as CPI(M) and New Democracy which had no representation in the present Assembly to elicit their opinions on governance and policies.