Telangana State accuses PSU banks of being partial to AP side funds

Telangana government stated that banks are ignoring its repeated reminders on this issue.

Following the row over transfer of labour department funds worth Rs 400 crore from TS to AP in October, the TS government had written to all banks to freeze accounts and not allow any unilateral transactions. However, this impacted the functioning of the institutions. Both the governments then agreed to use the funds after mutual discussions.

However, it came to the notice of the TS government recently that around Rs 5 crore was transferred by AP from bank accounts belonging to AP Mineral Development Corporation without its consent.

APMDC officials withdrew Rs 3 crore from the Nallakunta branch of Indian Bank on December 9 and another Rs 2 crore from the Khairatabad branch of SBH last week. TS appointed two special officers, A. Anand and C. Udaya Raj to track the transactions of common institutions. They found that cash reserves of APMDC came down from Rs 52 crore to Rs 47 crore. Officials alerted mines minister T. Harish Rao who in turn asked chief secretary Rajiv Sharma to take up the issue with the banks and the Centre.

“There seems to be no end to conspiracies of Seemandhra leaders against Telangana even after bifurcation. Even though both the governments reached an agreement on the use of funds in common institutions, the AP government has been unilaterally withdrawing funds from bank accounts. It is unfortunate that bankers are cooperating with the AP government,” Mr Harish Rao said. He asked officials to immediately take up the issue with banks, RBI and the Centre to protect the interests of Telangana state.