Telangana CM meets Sitharaman, seeks restructuring of loans

Hyderabad, Sep 9 (IANS) Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Tuesday requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to allow restructuring of the loans to reduce mounting repayment burden on the state.

The Chief Minister met the Finance Minister in New Delhi and made the request for the restructuring of loans.

According to the Chief Minister’s Office here, the Chief Minister told the Finance Minister that, as the previous government had arbitrarily borrowed loans at high-interest rates, repayment had become a huge burden on the state government.

The Union minister responded positively to the Chief Minister’s request, the CMO said.

Revanth Reddy also requested Nirmala Sitharaman to extend all support to the state government to strengthen the education sector as the government has introduced revolutionary changes in education recently.

The Chief Minister briefed the Union Minister on the measures initiated to provide corporate-style education to the BC, SC, ST and minority sections who constitute about 90 per cent of the state’s population.

He said that 105 Young India Integrated Residential Schools are being constructed in 105 Assembly constituencies. The construction work of the four schools has already started, and tenders for the remaining schools have been finalised. Each school will accommodate 2,560 students, and 2.70 lakh students will get the opportunity to study in all schools in the state.

The Chief Minister also briefed the Union minister about the requirement of the funds to construct the Young India schools with the state-of-the-art facilities, including labs, sports stadium, etc. The total cost of the construction of the schools will be Rs 21,000 crore. Another Rs 9,000 crore will be spent on providing modern labs and other infrastructure in junior, degree, technical colleges and other higher educational institutions.

To meet the financial requirement for the construction of the residential schools, the CM appealed to Nirmala Sitharaman to permit the state government to constitute a special corporation to mobilise funds and also exempt it from the FRBM limit.

Revanth Reddy told the Union Minister that the state government was spending huge funds on the education sector, treating it as an investment.

Congress MPs Dr Mallu Ravi, Porika Balaram Nayak, Suresh Shetkar, Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy, State Finance Principal Secretary Sandeep Kumar Sultania, and Central Projects and Schemes Coordinating Secretary Gaurav Uppal accompanied the Chief Minister.

--IANS

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