AP To Lose Rs 15,000 cr Grant From Centre?

It’s an open secret that the AP government is indulging in a serious financial mismanagement and the government of India, especially the union finance ministry has knowledge of this. With AP’s debts crossing all the limits, the Centre has tightened the norms and this has forced the AP government to rethink on 130 centrally sponsored schemes.

This decision of AP government would make them lose Rs 15,000 crore and employment to those associated with these schemes could have serious implications. As per a leading Telugu daily’s report, AP government receives Rs 20,000 crore grants from GoI under many flagship schemes. Simultaneously the state government has to credit its share, called ‘Matching Grant’ which is valued at Rs 12,000 crore.

But CM Jagan’s government has made it a habit of diverting the funds of centrally sponsored schemes. Regarding the same the finance ministry received numerous complaints against the YCP government on its financial mismanagement and finally the ministry reacted. The state government was summoned to open a bank account for every centrally sponsored scheme and also ordered to share the login details of every account.

Directing the state government to credit its matching grant in these accounts, the ministry asked the Jagan sarkar to implement the schemes and share all the info. Having sensed some trouble, the Jagan government tried to trick the union ministry and also the banks. Initially SBI was approached and AP government asked the central share fund to be credited and the state matching grant to be lent by the bank in the form of Over-Draft (OD).

SBI calculated this move by the AP government and declined to take this proposal as it is totally not feasible. So the AP government knocked the Union Bank of India and the same scene was repeated. Finally the AP government opened 130 single nodal agency bank accounts in September 2021. From the same month, the funds from GoI are getting credited duly while the state government failed to credit its share. Simultaneously the GoI has been monitoring the financial statements of these bank accounts and issued an ultimatum to the state government to credit the matching grant.

All options before the AP government dried up and in a strange move, the government has decided to give up the centrally sponsored schemes. Among the 130 schemes, the state government is considering implementing just five or six and credit the matching grant only to these schemes. This can make AP get only Rs 4000 or Rs 5000 crore from the GoI losing Rs 15,000 crore.

The AP finance ministry sort a report by Friday on how many schemes with integration of central funds can be implemented in the state and not send proposals to the GoI for flagship schemes.

The newspaper report further claimed that thousands of them are working under GoI recognised schemes and with Jagan’s sarkar’s decision, the employees are most likely to lose their livelihood.