Sarpanchas issue: Uttam demands white paper over funds flow

HYDERABAD: Squarely blaming the suicide of sarpanchs on the government's delay in releasing funds, Congress MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Monday demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao issue a white paper on the issue.

In a media statement, he accused the BRS government of cheating the sarpanchs by fraudulently transferring Rs 35,000 crore released by the 15th Finance Commission for gram panchayats to other accounts.

Uttam Kumar Reddy, the former TPCC chief, alleged that the state government had first made all 12,751 panchayats open bank accounts to transfer of the funds from the 15th Finance Commission. It then fraudulently retained the key to the digital signatures of sarpanches and upa-sarpanches who operated the accounts.

“The Finance Commission deposited the funds to all gram panchayats on December 24. Later, on December 28, the state government mopped up the money in these accounts with the digital key to make payments for another scheme through a fraudulent transfer," he alleged.

“KCR calls Telangana a 'model' and the 'richest' state. In reality, Telangana is facing a severe economic crisis with no funds left for the implementation of schemes. Even the government staff are not getting their salaries on time. Instead of taking corrective measures to streamline the finances, KCR government is resorting to methods like fraudulently stealing funds from one department to pay another. Misuse of keys for digital signatures of sarpanchs and upa-sarpanchs is totally illegal and must be condemned," he alleged.