Harichandan accountable for Rs 25,000 Cr loans: Rafi
CM mortgaging lands, Govt buildings, drinkers, Guv, etc
AMARAVATI: TDP Official Spokesman Syed Rafi on Tuesday accused the Jaganmohan Reddy Government of deliberately making Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan personally accountable for the Rs. 25,000 Cr of loans taken through the AP State Development Corporation (APSDC).
Rafi said that usually, just the office of Governor would be mentioned in the official correspondence, omitting the name. But in the bank guarantees for the APSDC massive loans, Harichandan’s name was mentioned obviously with an ulterior motive. This situation went to such a pitiful extent that the Governor had to write a letter to the Government objecting to the mention of his name in the bank guarantees.
Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader said the lawless activities of the Jagan Reddy regime were reaching new peaks with each passing day. They were mortgaging the Government bungalows, Collector’s offices, parks, lands and even drinkers in the State. Now, even the Governor’s name was mortgaged to bring Rs. 25,000 Cr of loans in the name of Jagananna welfare programmes.
Rafi held the Governor’s style of functioning responsible for the present sorry state of affairs in Andhra Pradesh. The TDP complained to him countless times on the deteriorated law and order, attacks on the TDP national office and on former CM Chandrababu Naidu’s residence and the innumerable strictures passed by the courts. Harichandan did not take action and simply went soft on the omissions of the Jagan regime.
The TDP leader asked whether the Governor had taken the failure of systems and institutions in AP to the notice of the Central Government at least now. There were suspicions whether or not Harichandan informed the Centre about the AP Government’s serious lapses in the APSDC loans. In future, Harichandan would be made accountable to the loans even if he would retire and go back to his home State, Orissa.
Expressing serious concern, Rafi called it ‘irresponsible’ on the part of the Government to simply say that a mistake occurred in preparing the bank guarantees. This was just a lame excuse as over six to seven IAS officers would be involved in passing these files and lots of employees would have checked them at various levels. How can senior civil servant SS Rawat describe it as just a simple mistake when thousands of crores were involved?
The TDP leader demanded the senior officers to explain how they could rectify the mistake as informed to the Governor in their reply. The banks have also acted negligently in the whole issue. There was no clarity whether the bank guarantees would be reviewed and rectified by deleting the Governor’s name. This kind of mortgaging the Governor’s name for massive loans did not take place anywhere in the country ever before.
Rafi said that one Malleswara Rao, an additional secretary in the Government, signed the bank documents. His retirement would be in less than a week. During the YSR rule in the united AP State, Jagan Reddy formed many suitcase companies and committed huge frauds. As a result of this, 10 to 12 IAS officers were trapped in corruption cases and had to appear before the courts. Some of them like Sri Lakshmi even went to jail.
