Minister for IT, Industries and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao has dared the Opposition — Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — to prove a State under their rule as better performing than Telangana and if they could, he would quit as Minister the next morning itself.
Replying to the debate on “measures taken by the government for providing infrastructure facilities and Palle Pragathi-Pattana Pragathi in the State” in the Assembly on Saturday, the Minister faulted M.Bhatti Vikramarka of Congress and M. Raghunandan Rao of BJP for making sweeping remarks on several issues “based on information they have or based on newspaper reports without ascertaining facts”.
Rebutting the criticism of Mr.Vikramarka on rural and urban development, Mr.Rama Rao said the Telangana model of development was holistic, integrated and inclusive and the average capital expenditure in Telangana was 25% during the past nine years, while it was 16% in Rajasthan and 15% in Chhattisgarh.
On urban development, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government has spent ₹1,21,294 crore since the formation of the State and it includes the Centre’s contribution of ₹9,934 crore, while the expenditure was just ₹26,211 crore during the previous Congress rule from 2004 to 2014. He also cited a report published in the columns of The Hindu on Strategic Nala Development Project (SNDP) works and asked the Congress and BJP members to glance through it.
ORR lease
On the monetisation of Outer Ring Road, the Minister reiterated that the State government had followed the guidelines of NHAI and the agency to which the ORR was being leased out had similar leases of Udaipur-Shamla and Chittorgarh-Gulabpur highways in Rajasthan and Tummkur-Chitradurga and Karwar-Kundapur highways in Karnataka. Even power lines were being leased out in Gujarat, he mentioned.
Similarly, he explained that expenditure made by Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Departments in the State was ₹28,946 crore since the formation of the State, while it was only ₹6,142 crore during 2004-14. He stated that the BRS government had made Nalgonda a fluoride-free district as part of providing treated and piped drinking water to households in 24,000 habitations against 4,035 by the previous government.
Stating that he had taken permission from the chair, Mr. Rama Rao recalled the Assembly records where then TDP member and present PCC president A. Revanth Reddy had lambasted then Congress rule over power and water supply and migration in Mahabubnagar as also his remarks against the Congress president for being responsible for suicides of over 1,000 youth in support of statehood to Telangana as the party went back on its promise made in 2004.
The Minister said it was for the people to make an informed decision between a three-hour power supply to farming, fanning communal passions or free water and power for three crops every year. While the Congress and BJP were thinking about the next elections, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao was thinking about the future generations of the State.
On the repeated claims of the Congress that it had given statehood to Telangana, Mr.Rama Rao sought to know whether it would be correct if the British said that they had given nationhood to India stating that it was the Congress that had forcibly merged Telangana with Andhra Pradesh in 1956 against the willingness of the former.
