BRS spent 4.6 times the outlay of Congress govt: KTR
Deepika Pasham
Hyderabad
The Bharat Rastra Samiti government spent Rs 1,21,294 crore or 4.6 times (463 %) the amount that the Congress government had spent from 2004 to 2014, Industries Minister KT Rama Rao revealed, while releasing the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department’s annual report on Wednesday.
The Minister said that of this Rs 1,21294 cr,spending on infrastructure by the state government during 2014-23 accounted for a whopping Rs 1,11,360 crs (91.8%) and only Rs 9,934 cr (8.2 per cent) was the Government of India’s share.The maximum increase in absolute terms happened in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area, where it went up by 850 percent during 2014-23 (with an investment of Rs 44,021.99 cr), compared to the 2004-14 period (Rs 4,636.38 cr). This became possible because the GHMC created project based dedicated SPVs such as SRDP, CRMP, HRDC, and SNDP during 2014-23, thus bringing a dedicated focus on urban infrastructure in Hyderabad. The GHMC could also raise resources through bonds and bank loans based on its own balance sheet during this period.
KTR elaborated that the growth in other departments was almost 3614 per cent growth in CDMA i.e. 141 ULBs other than GHMC (from Rs 598 cr to Rs 22,210 cr, primarily due to the introduction of Pattana Pragathi Programme), 190 per cent up in HMWSSB, 171 per cent in TUFIDC (upto Rs 7,803 cr primarily because of undertaking infra works under TUFIDC Bank linked prog), and more than 1,000 per cent jump in the Public Health Department budget (focused on drinking water), among others.
If one included other departments such as Energy (increase in substations and transformers), health (Basti Davakhanas), R&B, Education and Women and Child Welfare, another Rs 12,757 cr was spent in urban Telangana during 2014-23, thus taking the total spending on infra in Hyderabad and other cities to at least Rs 1,34,051.28 cr during 2014-23. The unprecedented investments reaffirmed the commitment of the BRS government to planned urban growth and development.
