The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : TDP contradicts YSR's claim on obtaining loans

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 19, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TDP contradicts YSR's claim on obtaining loans

Special Correspondent

`Letter' addressed by official to World Bank released

HYDERABAD: The Telugu Desam has contested the Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's claim that his Government was not accepting any World Bank conditions while obtaining loans and read out extracts of a letter written by top officer to the Bank to prove its point.

Addressing a press conference, the former Finance Minister, Y. Ramakrishnudu, and the TD leader, M. V. Mysoora Reddy, said the letter by P. Ramakanth Reddy, Principal Secretary, Finance, on January 1, 2005, clearly stated that "the Government had carried out various measures to the satisfaction of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), a sister organisation of World Bank."

Steps to meet targets

The letter also spoke of how the Government had taken important steps to meet the targets set in the areas of Public Expenditure Management Reforms, Government and Public Management Reforms and Reforms in the power, health and education sectors.

Was this proof not enough to question the Chief Minister's contention, they asked. "He seems to have one rule when he is the Leader of the Opposition and another when he runs the Government," they said.

In fact the Government should make public, the letter, agreements and other documents relating to the World Bank, to clear doubts among people.

The borrowings this year stood at Rs, 10,000 crores, which was unprecedented 34.2 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

The documents also show that the Congress Government was seeking loans based on the performance of the economy for the last four years, which meant the economy under the Telugu Desam's dispensation was indeed doing well.

"They speak one thing in public and another before the World Bank.

In fact the economic and agriculture growth rate and food production have all come down during the last one year."

NGO report `biased'

On the finding of Christian Aid, an NGO, linking farmers suicide to reforms during TDP rule, they said the report appeared motivated.

They wondered how a charitable organisation could comment on the Government's policies, when it had neither given any grant to the Government nor to the farmers.

Even the Department For International Development's grant was meant for health and slum improvement and not for agriculture.

Moreover, the organisation and others who were making such allegations should not forget that the TDP was following reforms initiated by the Congress Government in 1991.

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