KCR turned Telangana into corrupt State: AICC national spokesperson Dasoju Sravan

Hyderabad: All India Congress Committee (AICC) national spokesperson Dasoju Sravan on Thursday alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao turned Telangana into corrupt State and this was his achievement in the last six years.

Addressing a press conference, Sravan said, "Having ruined the State's economy for the last six years by misusing the public funds, the chief minister is now giving sermons on maintaining fiscal discipline.

He wasted huge amounts to lead a lavish lifestyle and resorted to expenditure on non-productive purposes."

Sravan asked as to why the chief minister did not think of financial discipline when he wasted money on construction of Pragathi Bhavan or when buying super luxury cars and bus for his convoy.

He said it was highly regrettable that the only sector which registered growth was excise as Rs 20,000 crore earned from the sale of liquor.

The Congress leader stated the spending on education compared to overall budget was 10.88 per cent in 2014-15; 9.69 per cent in 2015-16; 8.23 per cent in 2016-17; 8.49 per cent in 2017-18; 7.61 per cent in 2018-19 and it fell to just 6.75 per cent in 2019-20. Despite the decrease, he said TRS leaders were making misleading statements.

"On July 25, 2019, Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy claimed in Nizamabad that the Telangana government was spending Rs 16,000 crore on education and improving the standards of the system.

On September 19, 2019, Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy claimed in the Assembly that the government was spending Rs 18,600 crore on education. But in reality, the education sector was allocated Rs 9,899.80 crore out of the total budget of Rs 1.46 lakh crore," he said.

"The State's literacy rate, according to the 2011 census, is 66.46 per cent, much lower than the national average of 74 per cent. Similarly, Sravan said Telangana was on the bottom in the list of 31 States and Union Territories in spending on public health.

It ranked 28th in 2014-15 (4.1 per cent); 30th in 2015-16 (3.9 per cent); 28th in 2016-17 (4.1 per cent); 29th in 2017-18 (4.2 per cent); 28th in 2018-19 (4.2 per cent) and its rank was 30th in 2019-20 with a spending of mere 3.5 per cent of total budget on public health.