HYDERABAD: Rejecting the observations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) against State finances, Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao alleged that the CAG was adopting different parameters in its audit for different States.
“While the loans taken for the Union government’s UDAY scheme were considered as capital expenditure by the CAG in the BJP-ruled States such as Uttar Pradesh, the same loans were considered as debt in Telangana and other non-BJP ruled States,” the Minister said.
Interacting with media persons here on Monday, Harish Rao said the CAG report had made certain observations with regard to expenditures such as UDAY loans only on technical grounds. The CAG had not found fault with any issue against the State government over budgetary allocations and spendings as pointed out by the Congress leaders. “In fact, the CAG appreciated our initiatives and achievements such as 28.22 per cent capital expenditure against 19.7 per cent in other States. Congress leaders are trying to pick holes in CAG report,” he criticised.
Mentioning that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had already written to the Union Finance Minister requesting the latter to adopt uniform methodology for all States while auditing the budgetary allocations and expenditure, Harish said even Congress Chief Ministers from neighbouring States were levelling similar allegations. “But the Congress leaders in Telangana are in no mood to accept the same,” he commented.
According to him, both Congress and BJP governments at Centre refused to accept the CAG reports and questioned their credibility. The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said people need not take CAG reports seriously.“Prime Minister Narendra Modi also asked people to ignore CAG report which unearthed corruption amounting to `23,000 crore during his regime as the Gujarat CM earlier,” Harish said.