Hyderabad: There was also no mention about setting up an All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Indian Institute of Management as had been sought by the TS government in the Union Budget.
The only consolation was a mention about the tribal university for which Rs 1 crore was allotted. The share of TS in Central taxes also remained more or less the same at Rs 13,955 crore.
Mr Rao had also made a special appeal to the Prime Minister for sanctioning Rs 30,000 crore for development of backward areas in TS, which too was not considered.
What the state got in the Budget included Rs 20 crore for IIT-Hyderabad, Rs 1 crore for the new tribal university, Rs 15 crore for INCOIS, Rs 62 crore for the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Rs 60 crore for the Advance Research Centre.
“The Budget is very disappointing for Telangana. None of our major proposals was considered. The state had been promised several projects in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. However, they were kept pending. This is the third Budget of the NDA government and all bifurcation-related issues still remain unaddressed,” said S. Venugopala Chary, the TS government’s representative in New Delhi.
TRS floor leader in the Lok Sabha A.P. Jitender Reddy said the party would take up these issues during the debate on the budget in Parliament.
“We have waited for two years over the pending bifurcation-related issues. Despite this, the Centre ignored these issues even in its third Budget. We will bring pressure on the Centre to include some of the pending issues before the passage of the Budget,” Mr Reddy added.
TRS deputy floor leader B. Vinod Kumar said, “We did our best to secure national status for Pranahita project. It’s disappointing that the Centre ignored it again.”
The share of Central taxes has increased from Rs 12,350 crore to Rs 13,955 crore this year, a hike of Rs 1,605 crore. Another plea of the TS government, to exempt civic bodies like GHMC, HMDA and HMWS&SB from income tax was also ignored.
