NITI Aayog hits back at KCR’s boycott of the Governing Meeting

HYDERABAD: The Niti Aayog on Saturday termed as “unfortunate” the decision of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to not attend its governing council meeting on Sunday, and said it was not correct on his part to say no efforts were made to consult the state on the agenda for the meeting.

In a statement it released soon after Chandrashekar Rao announced his boycott at a press conference, Niti Aayog said the Chief Minister did not respond to its requests for a meeting with him and recalled how last year a delegation led by its vice chairman met him in Hyderabad to discuss Telangana’s development issues.

For Sunday’s meeting, the Niti Aayog said, the Chief Minister’s allegation that Telangana was not consulted was incorrect as the state’s Chief Secretary had participated in the first National Chief Secretaries Conference in Dharamshala in June this year. The conference was a culmination of a six- month long deliberations wherein all States/ UTs including the Chief Secretary of Telangana participated, the Niti Aayog said.

With respect to allocations for the water sector, it said the Centre had released Rs 3,982 core under the Jal Jeevan Mission for the state during the last four year but the government had drawn only Rs 200 crore. It also said that Rs 1,195 crore were released to Telangana under the PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme, and the Command Area Development and Water Management programmes between 2014 and 2022.

Expressing regret over the Chief Minister’s decision, Niti Aayog underlined the significance of its governing council meeting as a forum where the highest political leadership in the country at Centre and State levels deliberate on key development-related issues and agree on appropriate outcome-oriented solutions for national development.