Congress Opposes Hikes In Power Tariff, Property Tax

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy strongly condemned the announcement made by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao that electricity tariff and property tax were going to be increased shortly.

"The KCR government has been handling the the state's finances in a haphazard manner right from the beginning. There is a huge mismatch between the budget estimates and the actual revenues. Consequently, the government borrowed indiscriminately, pushing the entire state into huge debt. Instead of taking corrective measures at least now in view of the economic slowdown, it again presented an unrealistic budget of Rs 1.82 lakh crore, and now it wants to burden the common man to cover up its failures through these hikes," Reddy said.

The Congress leader claimed that the people were already hit by rising inflation and ever-increasing fuel prices. "The economic slowdown has already led to job losses and cuts in income sources. In addition, Telangana is among the states which levy high taxes and surcharges on fuel. The increase in RTC fares by 20 paisa per kilometre, a direct result of that, has already burdened the common man. The hike in power tariff now will not only hit the commercial sector and industries, it will also break the backbones of the domestic consumers," he lamented.

Reddy demanded that the TRS government review its decision and adopt an approach to achieving growth that did not put any additional burden on the common man.