AICC secretary and former MLA Ch. Vamshichand Reddy has asked the government the rationale behind 50% salary deferment of the employees here when much poorer States like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and even Andhra Pradesh are still paying salaries without any deductions.
At a press conference here, he said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao always claims Telangana as the richest State, but it is cutting down salaries when people are already overwhelmed with the lockdown-induced hardships. “If even the pensioners are not spared, we know how poor the State has become,” he said.
He said the real reason behind the deferment of salaries is the huge interest the government has to pay for the loans it has raised in the last six years. The outstanding public debt at the end of the financial year 2020-21 has been pegged at ₹2.29 lakh crore. This is ₹30,100 crore higher than the previous year’s public debt of ₹1.99 lakh crore.
He claimed that borrowings outside the budget stood at ₹40,241.32 crore with irrigation sector constituting ₹22,380 crore and Mission Bhagiratha accounting to ₹12,010 crore while others were pegged at ₹5,849.98 crore. He said the CAG also expressed concern that the interest payments by the government in relation to revenues were higher at 12.19% against the target of 8.31% fixed by the 14th Finance Commission.
It is unfortunate that even now the Chief Minister wants to borrow another ₹1.18 lakh crore, he said, and asked how can the CM even think of it.