Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his ministers and other TRS leaders always boast that Telangana is a ‘rich state’.

They always say that Telangana became ‘revenue surplus state’ after bifurcation of AP in 2014 saying that rulers in Undivided AP prior to 2014 had made Telangana a ‘poor region’ as they diverted Telangana funds to Andhra.

But the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) report for 2018-19  tabled in Telangana Legislative Assembly today (Friday) confirmed that the TRS government had also made Telangana a ‘revenue-deficit state’ during the last six years of its rule.

The CAG report made it clear that Telangana government is manipulating figures to show Telangana state as a ‘revenue surplus state’ but the fact remains that it is a revenue-deficit state.

In its report, CAG stated that the Telangana government has overstated revenue surplus by Rs 9,481 crore and understated fiscal deficit by Rs 217 crore. Effectively, there was a revenue deficit of Rs 5,144 crore but the Telangana government showed revenue surplus of Rs 4,337 crore in the Budget (Revised Estimated) for 2018-19.

The CAG also stated that the loans taken by Telangana government were increased by 16% over the previous year. The total debt burden of Telangana government stands at Rs 1.65 lakh crore in 2018-19. Of this, the government has to repay Rs 76,262 crore in the next seven years.