FM Nirmala Sitharaman pulls up Kamareddy Collector for vague reply

Hyderabad: What is the per kilogram cost incurred by the state government on rice supplied through the Public Distribution System? Kamareddy District Collector Jitesh Patil gave a vague reply to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and this has now become another issue of war of words between the TRS and the BJP.

The BJP felt that the state government was not allowing even the officials to give proper information even to a Union minister. They said it is highly unlikely that an IAS officer did not know what the state component in the PDS rice scheme was.

It all happened during the visit of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to Birkur village as part of BJP's 'Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana' in the Zaheerabad Parliamentary Constituency to attend various programmes and find out about the implementation of various state and Central schemes.

Interacting with the people in Birkur, she asked the Collector about the state component in the rice scheme that costs Rs 35 a kg in open market and is supplied for Re 1 to ration card holders. The Collector murmured Rs 34.

Unhappy with the vague response, she asked him to come up with an answer in the next 30 minutes. "You are an IAS officer of Telangana cadre. Think about it and before my address to the media and come with an answer so that I can tell them that even if the Collector could not answer my question immediately, he struggled and got the information, she said.

Sitharaman told the people that the Centre bears Rs 28 and charges Re 1 from people. Apparently state bears only Rs 6 per kg. She also expressed her ire over the refusal of the district administration to put up Modi's flexi in PDS outlets. She said that the Centre had spent Rs 5 lakh crore on the employment guarantee scheme.

She said Telangana was given Rs 20,000 crore under the scheme in the past eight years.

Defending the visit of survey teams, Sitharaman said they will come to any state if there are complaints of irregularities or if there are any remarks in the audit report. The minister also accused the TRS government of changing the names of the Central schemes and projecting them as the state schemes. She further alleged that Ayushman Bharat scheme was not being implemented in the state.

Reacting to this, state Finance Minister T Harish Rao challenged that he would resign if she could prove her charge. He said the Union minister should have explained the reasons for steep increase in prices of fuel and fall in value of the rupee. Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy alleged that Sitharaman had ignored the petitions given by him for setting up a cold storage in the district.