The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Thursday decided to raise various issues including GST dues of the state and oppose the proposed electricity reforms during the Parliament session, beginning Monday. The decision was taken at the TRS parliamentary party meeting chaired by party President and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
He asked the party members in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to raise various state issues in both the houses and urge the Centre to do justice to the state. He said that the party should fight on the state issues without any compromise.
The meeting discussed the strategy to be adopted by the party MPs in both the houses. The meeting felt that the Centre has been doing injustice to the state in releasing funds towards its due share and fulfilling various commitments.
The TRS also decided to stage a protest near the Gandhi statue at Parliament, demanding release of GST funds to the state. TRS parliamentary party leader K Keshav Rao told reporters after the meeting that Rs 5,764 crore GST dues are pending, besides IGST and backward area development fund.
K Kesha Rao (KK) alleged that the NDA government's response has been inadequate on various issues concerning Telangana.
"We have written hundreds of letters from the state about many issues, many projects but their response is not good on almost all projects, almost all basic issues," he said.
Keshav Rao said Telangana was not even allocated the required quantity of urea, though the land under cultivation in the state had gone up by 24%.
Terming the proposed Electricity Amendment Bill as anti-people, the TRS has decided to oppose it. The meeting saw the presence of all the MPs represented by the TRS .
Earlier, KCR had also written to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman opposing the Centre’s move to reduce GST compensation to be paid to states from Rs 3 lakh crore to Rs 1.65 lakh crore.
State Finance Minister T Harish Rao too expressed concerns over GST compensation, saying, “the state government has decided to take up the issue in Parliament and also initiate legal recourse if the Centre refuses to take full responsibility to uphold the GST Act that was passed in the Parliament.”
Harish Rao had discussions with Finance Ministers of West Bengal, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Punjab through video conference, stating that the Centre owes the state compensation of GST for any shortfall in revenue collections on "legal and moral" grounds.