Telangana not represented at Niti Aayog meeting

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government was not represented at the Niti Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Saturday, triggering speculation in political circles.

While it was known that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had dropped his plan of attending the Niti Aayog meeting as he was busy with a Cabinet meeting on June 18 and the inaugural of the Kaleshwaram project on June 21, it was expected that he would send a representative at least. In the event, no one was sent from the state government.

The only other state not represented at the meeting was West Bengal.

Mr Rao’s staying away from the meeting was seen as a sign of his unhappiness with the BJP state leaders’ attitude towards the TRS government after the Lok Sabha polls.

Congress leaders in private said that it appeared that the BJP was driving a wedge between Mr Rao and AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who are seen as being close to each other.

They pointed out that the Prime Minister’s Office had not accepted the request of Mr Rao for an appointment with Mr Modi, but he had met Mr Reddy twice after his re-election. Sources said Mr Rao dropped out after failing to get an appointment with Mr Modi.

An official of the finance department said there would not be any loss caused to the state if it was not represented at the meeting as the Niti Ayog was not a statutory body which the erstwhile Plan-ning Commission was.

The Planning Commis-sion, scrapped in 2014, was empowered to prepare the five-year plans as well as approving the annual Budget of each state with regard to the Plan and non-Plan components.

The official said that with the introduction of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, the borrowing capacity of each state had been linked to its gross state domestic product.

The 15th Finance Commission had powers to recommend to the Centre to grant funds to state governments based on their annual revenue. That is why Mr Rao had given much importance to the the Finance Commis-sion when it visited the state a couple months ago, the official said. The Chief Minister personally made a presentation before the commission about the revenue and progress of the state.