What it wanted: a ₹40,000-crore allocation, which included funds for its flagship irrigation and drinking water projects. What the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government got: all of about ₹2,650 crore.
While the State government is unhappy with Budget 2018-19, it is not making any noise in Parliament or outside. Telangana Finance Minister Eatala Rajender and its IT & Industries Minister KT Rama Rao expressed their displeasure, but the government has largely been muted in its response.
“We had asked for ₹10,000 crore for the Kaleswaram [irrigation] project, for which we have already spent ₹22,000 crore,” Rajender had said after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely presented his fourth Budget.
The ambitious project aims to provide irrigation to 38 lakh acres in 13 out of the 31 districts in the State. The multi-purpose, ₹80,000-crore, project is starving for funds.
“We have reminded them about the promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act and wanted them to announce funds for the integrated steel plant, rail coach factory, horticulture and tribal university. It is unfortunate that there is no mention of these projects,” Rajender said.
The list of institutes, factories and industrial corridors in both the States were included in the 13th Schedule of the Re-Organisation Act of 2014.
Of the ₹2,650 crore allotted to the State in Budget 2018-19, ₹2,000 crore is for the Singareni coal mines. The remainder is to be distributed among central institutes, including ₹10 crore for the Tribal University.
But unlike their Andhra Pradesh counterparts, Telangana’s MPs, including Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao’s daughter K Kavitha, were not eloquent on the cold response to the State’s demands. In her speech in Lok Sabha on Thursday, Kavitha made an appeal to the government to honour the promises made in the bifurcation Act for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Interestingly, her brother, KT Rama Rao, had met at least three high-ranking Central Ministers the same day. He met Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to consider allocation of one of the two Defence Industrial Production Corridors proposed in the Budget for Telangana.
He also met Union Minister for Science and Technology, Environment & Forests Harsha Vardhan, seeking environmental clearances for the Pharma City project near Hyderabad. In the Rail Budget, South Central Railway was allocated ₹1,813 crore, which is 5 per cent more than the ₹1,729 crore it got in the previous year.