hyderabad
Senior leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Minister for Finance and Health T. Harish Rao has stated that the vote to Congress implies consent for installation of meters to agricultural pump-sets, which was implemented in about a dozen Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled and other States already.
“I am speaking with proof and ready for a debate on it. The BJP leaders in State have been trying to mislead people on the issue all these days. However, their own leader and Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has made it clear yesterday that Telangana was denied 0.5% (of GSDP) additional borrowing facility for not accepting the condition of implementing power sector reforms, particularly installation of meters to farm pump-set connections”, Mr. Harish Rao said addressing press conference at Siddipet on Wednesday.
He sought to know how will the BJP leaders including Eatala Rajender, Bandi Sanjay, M. Raghunandan Rao and D. Arvind would seek the votes of farming community. K. Chandrasekhar Rao was the only Chief Minister in the country to have announced in the Assembly that he would not allow installation of meters to farm power connections, lest it cost funds for development works, he said.
The Congress-ruled Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka had agreed to install meters, while States such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala ruled by its INDIA allies had already installed meters in addition to the BJP-ruled Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur. States such as Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya, which were not party of either INDIA or NDA alliance had also installed meters, the BRS leader mentioned.
Congress leaders from Karnataka – Chief Minister K. Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar had agreed that they were giving only 5-hour supply to their farmers and installation of meters would make the life more difficult to the farming community. Alleging that both the Congress and BJP were anti-farmer parties, Mr. Harish Rao said the Congress-led UPA Government didn’t implement the report of Swaminathan Commission instituted by it, while the BJP-led NDA Government had gone back on the promise of implementing it.
Stating that the interests of 69 lakh farmers having about 30 lakh farm power connections were paramount to the BRS Government and not the ₹5,000 crore a year additional borrowing facility, he noted that the Telangana was a State with financial discipline and fiscal prudence. The per capita income of Telangana had reached ₹3,17,117 in 2023 from ₹1,24,014 in 2014. Similarly, the State’s debt was at 28.2% of its GSDP with 22 out of 27 other States having debt in the range of 28.6% to 56.7% of their GSDP.
He explained that Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Manipur, Bihar, Kerala, Tripura, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, Nagaland and Mizoram had higher percentage of GSDP as outstanding liabilities than Telangana.
