Hyderabad: The Telangana government has decided to adopt a cautious approach in regard to the special package that was announced to the Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday. However, Telangana’s special representative in Delhi S Venugopalachary asked the Centre to release funds also to the backward districts of Telangana under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BGRF) on the lines of its allocation of funds to the backward districts of AP on Wednesday.

The ministers and officials said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao who is now on a visit to Delhi would take up all pending issues, including devolution of funds and the incentives the state should get as per the AP State Re-organisation act 2014 with the Centre and the Prime Minister. .

They said that they would not like to comment on the decision of the Centre but would appeal to it to give funds for development of the backward regions of the state and also give special category status to Telangana. Venugopalachary said the state government has been requesting the Centre to allocate funds citing backwardness of the area and also because of the presence of large number of Dalits and minorities.

He cited that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the states to be financially strong so that the federal structure of the country will be robust. Welcoming the Centre’s decision to grant Rs 850 crore to the residuary Andhra Pradesh and tax incentives to both the states, he said the  pending grants from centre to the state was to the tune of Rs 11,498 crores for various centrally assisted schemes such as Panchayat Raj and Rural Development to social welfare projects related to women, children and disabled people before the end of this financial year.

Source: THI