Payyavula Keshav is serving as the Finance Minister in the AP government for the first time. Although he has been active in politics for many years, this is his first time as a minister, and he has been given the important responsibility of handling the finance portfolio. The main reason for this choice is his previous role as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee during the YSRCP rule, where he gained good knowledge of financial matters.
However, even after more than a year in this role, CM Chandrababu is reportedly not happy with his performance, saying that Keshav is still struggling to manage the department effectively. In some cases, senior finance officials have bypassed key policy decisions and cleared payments for contracts from the YSRCP period that were not supposed to be paid. This led to big controversies in the past.
One such incident involved payments for the Rushikonda Palace contractors in Visakhapatnam, which were made even before finalizing the project accounts. Chandrababu reportedly raised this issue in internal meetings. Keshav, on the other hand, publicly claimed he was unaware of it, which further embarrassed him.
Recently, another controversy has come up. During the YSRCP government, trees along the roads were cut for security purpose during Jagan’s visits. These contracts were given to local contractors, but the bills were not paid due to public criticism. The TDP at the time also opposed such works. Now, it is being reported that these bills have quietly been cleared. This has again drawn the attention of CM Chandrababu, who has asked for full details about the officials involved in the finance department.
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