TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as well as his ministers and other TRS leaders leave no occasion to boast that Telangana is a ‘rich state’, a ‘revenue surplus state’ after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh since 2014.

But the Budget 2021-22 presented by finance minister T Harish Rao in Legislative Assembly today (Thursday) proves otherwise.

Though the TRS government is presenting a revenue surplus budget right from the formation of Telangana state in 2014 till date, the budget copies tabled in Assembly show that Telangana has become a ‘revenue deficit state’ like neighbouring Andhra Pradesh for the past two years.

The budget papers show that Telangana was a revenue surplus state only until 2018-19 when it registered a revenue surplus of Rs 4,337 crore.

However, in 2019-20 Telangana became a revenue deficit state when it registered a Rs 6,254 crore revenue deficit.

In 2020–21, it again witnessed a revenue deficit of Rs 16,226 crore.

Despite this, Harish Rao presented a new budget 2021-22 with a revenue surplus of Rs 6,743 crore on Thursday.

Whether this is fake or real will be known when 2021-22 financial year ends and new budget for 2022-23 will be presented in March 22.