Niti Aayog had only half-truths to KCR's posers: Harish Rao

HYDERABAD: Telangana Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Sunday criticised Niti Aayog for failing to address the questions posed by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and instead coming up with a hurried statement devoid of facts in its defence.

Addressing a press conference here, he said that while KCR listed out the reasons for his decision to boycott the central advisory body's meeting, Niti Aayog had no answers for them. "Instead, it issued a statement with baseless claims. Our Chief Minister exposed the true colours of the statutory central body. It was unfortunate to see Niti Aayog responding with political overtones," he said.

The Telangana Finance Minister gave a point-by-point rebuttal of Niti Aayog's statement on Saturday evening which came in response to KCR's critical comments on the central advisory body. He wondered whether it was not true that the Centre had paid no heed to Niti Aayog's recommendation to release Rs 24,000 crores to Telangana's flagship schemes, Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha. The Niti Aayog only had a bouquet of half-truths to offer to the pointed questions of KCR, he commented.

Harish Rao countered Niti Aayog's claim that Telangana had utilised only Rs 200 crores out of a total grant of Rs 3,922 crores under Jal Jeevan, saying that repeated requests and a hail of letters from the state government failed to move the mountains at the Centre which, he alleged, refused funds on flimsy grounds. "Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat promised 'har ghar jal Telangana' right in Parliament but still there is no trace of funds from the Centre", he said.

The Telangana Finance Minister said that Niti Aayog was only making misleading statements and relying on false claims to cover up its follies. "They are making allocations only on paper and then bluntly refusing funds. Niti Aayog's half-baked statement reflects the Centre's irresponsible behaviour", he added.

Harish Rao also found fault with the Centre's claim that the devolution of funds for states had been increased. Calling it a blatant lie, he said that the 15th Finance Commission and even the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had repeatedly red-flagged the Centre, saying that it was faltering in allocating funds to the states in this regard.

Reiterating what KCR said on avoiding states' share in taxes by tweaking them into a cess, he said that the NDA government had so far collected a whopping Rs 21 lakh crores in the form of cess. "As per their previous share of 41 per cent, Rs 8.6 lakh crores should have been shared among all the states but the Centre avoided that by hiding behind the cess, which is unacceptable," he said.

The fact that Niti Aayog was rushed into issuing a statement showed how much pressure it came under due to KCR's boycott decision, Harish Rao asserted