No fund crunch to clear dues, says TS

Steps being taken to release pending payments

The state government on Tuesday claimed that it has enough funds to clear all pending bills.

Principal secretary of finance K. Ramakrishna Rao, while interacting with media persons on Tuesday, said that the state government had to clear pending bills amounting to `3,474 crore and steps were being taken to clear the bills within a month and a half.

Maintaining that after the formation of Telangana state, the state had recorded a 10.9 per cent growth in the primary sector and 14.9 per cent in the secondary sector, he said that despite GST compensation, the state had witnessed a 14.5 per cent growth in tax revenue in FY 2018-19.

Refuting the reports that claimed that the state was in a financial crisis, Mr Ramakrishna Rao pointed out that the state government had so far spent `27,590 crore out of the estimated `44,960 towards Mission Bhagiratha and had only `649 crore in pending bills towards the aforesaid expenditure.

Stating that provisions were made in the vote on account budget for the payment of pensions under the Asara scheme and Rythu Bandhu as per the poll promises, he said that the pensions and financial assistance under the Rythu Bandhu scheme would be disbursed to the beneficiaries between the end of May and June this year.

He said `12,000 crore was allocated in the budget to pay pensions at the increased rate and `6,000 crore was allocated towards the Rythu Bhima scheme.

As for the FRBM Act

2004, he clarified that the state government would be eligible to avail `29,750 crores during the financial year 2019-20.

Mr Ramakrishna Rao further explained that the government had spent

`3,000 crore towards to reimburse fees and that no bills were pending with respect to the Rythu Bandhu scheme.