Union Budget: Telangana banks on KCR lobbying power

Hyderabad: The TS government is hopeful that Monday’s Union Budget will address bifurcation-related issues that were ignored in the previous two Budgets.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and finance minister Etela Rajender had recently met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley and submitted a wish list.

Mr Rao and Mr Rajender have met Mr Modi and Mr Jaitley on several occasions seeking fulfillment of promises made to Telangana in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 by incorporating them in the budget and alloting funds. These had failed to figure in the previous two budgets.

Mr Rajender said, “Only two weeks ago, the CM had met Mr Modi and sought inclusion of a huge financial assistance. The PM responded positively and we hope the new budget will include all these issues.”

Prior to Mr Rao’s Delhi tour, Mr Rajender had also met Mr Jaitley and urged him to relax the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management norms to incre-ase the state’s borrowing limit from 3 to 3.5 per cent of gross state domestic product.

AIMIM says, double minorities Budget

MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi and party floor leader in the Assembly Akbaruddin Owaisi on Sunday called on Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and sought an increase in the budget for minority welfare from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 2,000 crore.

Mr Asaduddin Owaisi told the CM that Rs 1,000 crore was not sufficient.

The MIM leaders asked Mr Rao to release the backlog of education scholarships for minority students.

An official source from the MIM said Mr Rao had responded positively to the requests made by the Owaisi brothers. “The MP also requested the CM to allot 65 acre in Ranga Reddy district for Muslim graveyards. The CM has agreed,” the source said.

The source said the MIM president had requested Mr Rao to grant Rs 500 crore towards minority loans. He requested extension of last date for submitting loan applications from February 29 to March 7.

Mr Asaduddin Owaisi later tweeted that Mr Rao had responded positively to their representations. He asked the CM to clear the Rs 470 crore compensation for road-widening, using Wakf lands.