Telangana, West Bengal slam Centre’s economic package

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) has criticised the Centre’s economic stimulus plan in response to the Covid-19 crisis. He accused the Centre of “blackmailing” state governments and “holding a knife to our neck”.

In a statement to the media, he said “This is not federalism. The cooperative federalism mentioned by the Prime Minister is bogus, a farce. We are also running a government… We are not subordinates to the centre. State governments have more responsibilities and duties than the centre, it is a fact”.

KCR mocked the conditions imposed by the Centre for increasing the states’ borrowing limits. He said Telangana had already carried out many reforms like “One Nation, One Ration Card” being advertised as part of the coronavirus relief package.

They are holding a knife to our neck and saying ‘if you do this, then I will give you ₹ 2,000 crore as alms’. They want us to increase municipal taxes. We don’t want those ₹ 2,000 crore. I am not against reforms. We have done more reforms than the conditions they imposed but the methods adopted by them totally wrong. – K Chandrashekar Rao, Telangana Chief Minister

On Sunday Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Centre is increasing the borrowing limit under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act from 3 per cent to 5 per cent but linked it to a number of conditions.

The conditions would include universalisation of ration cards, ease of doing business, power distribution and urban local body revenues.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also criticised the Centre saying the move is against the basic tenets of the federal structure and an “eyewash to befool people”. She called the package a big zero.