Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao for the first time in his capacity as the CM has broken his silence on the Union Budget. KCR who remained silent on Union Budget since 2014 lashed out for the first time terming it as ‘discriminatory’ and ‘hopeless’. He criticised that the 2020-21 Budget proposals introduced by the Centre on Saturday are totally disappointing. The

Surprisingly, AP CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy remained silent despite the Union Budget had nothing to offer for AP.

He made his finance minister Buggana to respond on behalf of AP government who responded in a moderate manner.

KCR has expressed anger that the Centre’s Budget allocations may adversely affect the development of the Telangana State, which is a progressive state. He alleged that the Centre has shown discrimination against the Telangana State by imposing severe cuts on the funds to be released to the State. He said it was atrocious that the Centre had reduced the ratio of the State in the Central taxes. He said there is a danger of having funds scarcity for several welfare and development programmes, schemes in the State due to the heavy cuts in the Central funds.

KCR held a four-hour long discussion with the senior officials at Pragati Bhavan here on Saturday.

KCR said it was a Constitutional Right of every State to have a share in the Central Taxes.

He said it is a sheer incompetence of the Centre to decrease the ratio of the State in the Central funds given to the States. There is a need to collect taxes in 2019-20 and release the share of funds to the States. On every occasion, the funds are paid to the States according to the proposals declared in the Budget. There were occasions when there was a variation of one or half percent. But reducing the funds to the tune of a whopping 18.9 per cent in 2019-20 clearly demonstrated the Centre’s faulty fiscal management. This had adversely impacted the Telangana State severely.

The Centre committing a great fraud and cheating the states on the GST front too, KCR said.