KCR set to skip Niti meet, may not send ministers, officials

HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has labelled Niti Aayog ‘useless’ and skipped its meetings, is unlikely to attend its eighth governing council meeting in Delhi on May 27. The theme of the meeting, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is ‘Viksit Bharat @ 2047: Role of Team India’
Official sources said the CM, who is disinclined towards the meeting, may not depute even ministers and officials this time.Officials have not even prepared any notes for the meeting as there were no instructions from the CMO. KCR on Thursday is believed to have said in a meeting that there was no point in attending the meeting when the Centre was biased against Telangana.
KCR has stopped attending the Niti Aayog meetings in the last few years — he last attended a meeting in 2018 — and was deputing ministers and senior officials to the meetings to represent Telangana. The CM said he was boycotting the meetings in protest against Centre’s alleged discrimination towards Telangana.
However, the Niti Aayog hit back saying that the Centre had allocated 3,982 crore from the Jal Jeevan Mission for Telangana. In addition, 1,195 crore was released under PMKSY-AIBP-CADWM to the state between 2014-2015 and 2021-2022.
“Overall allocation under the centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS) has increased from 2,03,740 crore in 2015-16 to 4,42,781 crore in 2022-23, i.e. more than double during this period, in addition to substantial hike in grants under 14th Finance Commission from 32% to 42%,” the Centre said.