BJP wields PD accounts lasso against TDP

​Hyderabad: The Personal Deposit (PD) Accounts imbroglio, which is rocking Andhra Pradesh now, promises to escalate further. The BJP, which remained at the receiving end after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu began a frontal attack on it for “injustice” done to the state, has found the report of the CAG on AP finances for the year 2016-17, as a powerful weapon to hit back at him and his governance.

The BJP, which had used the issue of corruption successfully at the UPA -II to ride to power at the Centre in 2014, appears to play the same card against the TDP by branding it as the most corrupt state. It equates the PD Accounts issue with 2G scam and says it is one much worse than Lalu Prasad Yadav’s financial misdemeanors in the infamous fodder scam in Bihar.

BJP Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao, who is going for the government’s jugular, is determined to take the issue to its logical end by seeking an inquiry into what he calls one of the largest scams that had occurred in India while the Telugu Desam government maintains that the allegations of corruption are all hogwash and that not even one rupee has been misappropriated. 

Sources in the Finance department said that legal action might be initiated against Narasimha Rao for lowering the dignity of the government by making allegations of corruption against it at a time when it was managing finances in the most transparent manner.

“I cannot say now what inquiry I will press for. But I will not leave the issue. If the state government is not guilty, why is it dragging its feet in seeking an inquiry by the CBI?” 

“I will use all the options available to me to proceed against the state government, whose image lies in tatters now,” Narasimha Rao said, pointing out that the threat of legal action against him makes him laugh. “This is how a government which is on the defensive always says. It is a face-saving gesture,” he said.

In fact, AP State Planning Board vice-chairman C Kutumba Rao also had challenged Narasimha Rao to prove that mismanagement of funds had occurred. He advised him to approach the Vigilance Commission if he believes that money had been siphoned out of PD accounts.

 “We are clean. We are not hiding anything and we are not afraid of anyone,” he said, adding that Narasimha Rao was raising Cain, as he does not understand how finances managed in a state and for what purpose PD accounts are opened and the number safeguards built into the system to prevent misuse of funds in them.

Narasimha Rao, quoting extensively from the CAG Report for the year ended March 2017, says at the beginning of April 1, 2016, the balance in 58,418 PD accounts was Rs 22,465.96 crore. During the year 2016-17, Rs 53,039 crore had been transferred to 30,838 accounts from the state’s consolidated fund (treasury). During the same year, Rs 51,448.40 crore had been withdrawn from 38,989 accounts. At the end of March 2017, Rs 26,513 crore was laying in 58,539 accounts, unspent.

Narasimha Rao suspects that the money that had been withdrawn may have been misused. “There is no obligation on the part of the drawing officer to take permission from the government to withdraw money from these accounts. The money that had been withdrawn was quite huge – Rs 51,448.40 crore – and the government minces words when asked as to how it had spent the money, for what purpose and who the beneficiaries were. 

Though the CAG had sought reports on this count, the government did not submit any documents, he says and maintains that money had been withdrawn from these PD accounts using self cheques which was a highly irregular way of managing funds. The CAG had laid down that self cheques could be used very sparingly, only to withdraw money for payment of wages and for meeting petty office expenses.

But Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu maintains that not even a single rupee has been misused. He says there was no way irregularities could be committed in transactions in PD accounts. He says PD account transactions cannot be compared to 2G scam since the latter related business activity.

Ramakrishnudu maintains that opening of PD accounts was to facilitate ease in management of funds. Most of these accounts are opened by local bodies, corporations and so on in banks and if there were quite a number of such PD accounts, it was because of the need to know how much money is flowing into the accounts and for what purpose. 

In panchayats, funds sent by the Centre and the state are parked in different PD accounts to avoid confusion, he says, wondering how money, if transferred to PD accounts, could be misused. The money is either in treasury or in PD accounts. Where is the question of misuse or scope for corruption? he asks.