Hyderabad: BJP slams State for failing to utilise PMGSY, PMAY funds

Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party State chief and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar criticised the Telangana State government for failing to utilise the Central funds under Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

Bandi on Tuesday said that the Union Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi has said in Parliament that Telangana was qualified to utilise funds under PMGSY. However, it was a shame on the part of the State government for failing to utilise the funds. The Karimnagar MP said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, aiming to provide houses to every eligible family in the country, was ready to release funds to the Telangana state. However, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's government has shown no interest in availing the same, he said.

The Centre had allocated 70,674 houses under PMAY, started in 2016, he said. However, to date, the State had not constructed a single house. The Centre was willing to release funds for the development of Telangana and the welfare of the people. But, the State government under Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was not bothered about the same. Details of the Centre's allocation of funds, housing units and construction of the roads expose the negligence of the TRS government, he pointed out.

He said the Union Minister Niranjan Jyothi had replied to a question by the Karimnagar MP clarifying that the Centre had asked the State government to return Rs 190.78 crore. The funds were released to it earlier since the State has not constructed a single house under the PMAY-general scheme.

He said that the Minister had said that the Centre had released Rs 849.01 crore between 2014 and 2016 against the construction of 1,22,260 houses sanctioned. But, the State has informed that it has so far constructed only 48,550 houses. Further, the Union Minister had clarified that the State had not implemented the PMAY so far.

It was against this backdrop that the Minister replied that the Centre has asked the State to return about Rs 190 crore. Further, the Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti replied that the funds for the cleared projects under PMGSY were made available to the State's Consolidated Fund, following the programme guidelines.

The State government was required to transfer the funds to the account of State Nodal Agencies along with the matching state share, and the proposal for the subsequent release of the Central share was considered after full credit of the previous release along with State share and fulfilment of other conditions, including expenditure above the specified threshold of the available funds.

Bandi said that the Minister, in her reply, said that the financial allocation for Telangana for the financial year 2021-22 was Rs 300 crore. As reported by the State government, matching state share of Rs 122.81 crore under regular PMGSY and Rs 106.28 crore under Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism Areas (RCPLWEA) against the previous Central releases had not yet been released by the Telangana government to State Nodal Agencies. Telangana would be eligible for further release of the Central share of funds on the release of the pending State shares, she clarified.