Shabbir disputes KTR's claims on State GSDP

Hyderabad: Former minister and senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Wednesday ridiculed the claims made by IT Minister K Tarakarama Rao that the State registered an increase by 130 per cent in the GSDP and 125 per cent in the per capita income. He alleged that the report with distorted data was indirectly planted in leading newspapers in view of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao's visit to New Delhi.

In a statement here he said KTR shared a news clipping to make the false claim of growth in GSDP and PCI instead of sharing the original report of the Union Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation.

"The TRS government has habit of manipulating budget figures to make fall claims of growth. In the Governor's address to the legislature on March 14, 2021, the government claimed that the GSDP increased by 114.71 per cent in the last six years. Now the growth figure has been raised to 130 per cent," he said.

Ali stated that the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) and the 15th Finance Commission have clearly pointed out the auditing errors committed by the Telangana government in the budget figures. "They have accused the government of inflating figures to show high revenues. Even the loans and borrowings were shown as State's revenue. Therefore, the present claim made by KTR, even if it was based on statistics of the Union Ministry of Statistics, was not reliable, as it is based on manipulated data", he added. Ali said the party would continue to expose the false claims being made by KCR government with regard to the State's economy.