TRS government lacks fiscal discipline: BJP

Hyderabad: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said that TRS chief and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and other political parties are misleading the people by stating that the country is facing recession because of the BJP at the Centre.

Addressing the media here on Thursday, he said that the TRS chief is trying to hide its own faults by alleging that the State budget allocations have to be cut due to the onslaught of recession on the country's economy following the economic initiatives of the Centre.

The Union Minister said while the Centre adopted several measures for fiscal discipline, the Telangana State government has been splurging crores of rupees without following fiscal discipline, he pointed out.

He asked whether gifting a Rs 1.8 crore silver ornaments in a recent event by the State government is a good tradition?

He said after coming to the power for the second time, Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre has taken several initiatives to give a boost to the economy.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have predicted GDP growth rates of 7 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively, during the current financial year.

However, due to the trade war between USA and China, the economic crisis in Europe in the countries like Germany, Greece and Brexit in the UK have caused recession across the globe.

Due to these developments, the country's growth has been slowed down in the first quarter of the current financial year registering only 5 per cent GDP.

Even then, India still remains the fastest growing economy, he pointed out. In a bid to give a fillip to the economy the Centre has taken several steps in the last four months to minimize the global recession on the Indian economy.

As part of this, for the first time, after 28 years, the Centre brought down the corporate tax. That apart, steps have been taken to pump Rs 70,000 crore funds to re-capitalise the banks increasing their lending capacity.

On the economic front, the Center has already given top priority to the rail, road, air and port connectivity, besides encouraging small and medium companies.

Reliefs announced on securities front to attract foreign investments, tax incentives, reducing surcharge on exports to discourage imports will help the creation of jobs, he said.

Low inflation rates, containing fiscal deficit to 3.8 per cent, no abnormal hikes in the essential commodities, the merger of banks to strengthen their working capacity etc have put the country's economy in the right direction to achieve 5 trillion dollar economy by 2025, he said.