VIJAYAWADA: Taking exception to the comments of BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao, Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu sought to know if GVL is not aware of what PD accounts are? In a press release here on Monday, he asked where was the scope for any corruption in the PD accounts. “Even not aware of such things, what would Narasimha Rao discuss in the Rajya Sabha?” he questioned.
He said there was no comparison between 2G scam and PD accounts. Personal Deposit account is a government activity under the Finance Department and it is mentioned in the Andhra Pradesh Financial Code Chapter 9, he explained.Yanamala said PD accounts happen to be in the names of the organisations and not in the name of individuals. “In the undivided AP, there were 72,652 PD accounts and post-bifurcation Andhra Pradesh has 43,374 PD accounts, while Telangana has 29,236 PD accounts. Most of these accounts belong to village panchayats. For own funds of the village panchayat, State and Central grants, each panchayat is allocated three PD accounts,” he elaborated.
According to him, after the State bifurcation to separate 13th Finance Commission and 14th Finance Commission funds, an additional 13,199 PD accounts were opened in AP, while Telangana is using same accounts for both 13th and 14th Finance Commission funds. Hence, there is no increase in the number of PD accounts in Telangana. “As per the CAG report, in the 57,455 PD accounts in the State, as on March 31, 2018, the total balance stood at `29,909 crore. To ensure transparency, our government has opened a PD account portal, which is a virtual net banking system. In the current fiscal, we have removed 12,822 PD accounts and the number of PD accounts as on date stood at 44,633,” he explained.