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Hyderabad: Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on Friday, July 3, said a debt of over Rs 8.21 lakh crore was incurred during the previous BRS regime and slammed the party for downplaying it.

He also said the BRS is carrying out a Goebbels campaign against the Congress government over various issues.

“You (BRS regime) took debts in different ways. (They are) loans under FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management) rules, in the name of corporations, pending dues to employees, dues to discoms (power distributions companies). Altogether, Rs 8,21,651 crore loans, dues you made. Is this not true,” he told reporters here.

Alleging that it was BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao who “destroyed” the state when he was the chief minister, he challenged KCR to state whether the debt burden was true or not. KCR must answer the debt burden, he said.

BRS working president K T Rama Rao and party MLA T Harish Rao, who are repeating the same lies every day, should answer whether the state government needs to repay the debts or not, he said.

The Congress government has paid Rs 2.08 lakh crore, including principal and interest, to banks during the last 30 months on the loans taken by the BRS regime, Vikramarka said.

The government got debt restructured as the BRS took loans at the rate of 10 per cent interest and above, he said.

The government has so far got Rs 34,058 crore (payable by 2031-32) restructured to Rs 11,915 crore, he said.

Referring to allegations of BRS that 40 lakh tonne of coal of state-run Singareni Collieries is missing, he said he has ordered an inquiry into the matter and the Director (Vigilance) of the government mining firm will look into it.

He said officials informed that even a kg of coal cannot go missing as a ‘geo-fencing” system is in place.

The BRS government has failed to get any new coal block for Singareni despite being in power for 10 years, he said.

The Deputy CM’s criticism against the BRS came in the wake of a high drama that unfolded here on July 2 as ministers of the Congress government arrived at the Telangana Martyrs’ Memorial to engage in a public debate with the opposition BRS leaders over allegations of scams and debt accumulation that both the ruling and opposition parties have raised against each other.