HYDERABAD: Union minister G. Kishan Reddy has charged the “family of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao” with a never-before situation of “so much ministerial and administrative powers have been vested on so few for so long in spite of such poor performance.”
Kishan Reddy, in a statement, lambasted the “Kalvakuntla family” for deliberately “propagating misinformation and lies through social media.”
In the statement, focused on Central government assistance to Telangana for the Smart Cities programme, Kishan Reddy said, “Telangana has been the most laggard state” in implementing this project, and instead the ruling TRS party leaders make claims that “not even a single rupee has been given by the Centre to the state for the project.”
The Union minister, who has been involved in a running battle with the state government over the issue of paddy procurement for some time now, on Wednesday, waded into the issue of Smart Cities project implementation, saying Telangana was yet to fully release its matching share of Rs 392 crore, an amount that was given to the state by the Centre for the project in Warangal and Karimnagar cities.
He said that of the Rs 1,000 crore allocated for the two cities by the Centre, it sent Rs 392 crore, while the state has, so far, after much prodding from the Centre, released Rs 210 crore in 2021-22, five years after the projects were to take off.
He said the timely release of the state’s share would have ensured better drainage and sewerage facilities and would have helped Warangal and Karimnagar cope better with the recent floods. He said the Smart Cities project works on a 50 per cent-50 per cent cost-sharing basis.
He also said that in addition, the Government of India allocated Rs 2,780 crore under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0, including funds for 66 projects worth RS 1,660 crore that were a part of the approved plan for the Mission’s first phase, covering 12 cities in the state.
Kishan said that with Kalvakuntla family members in charge of “critical ministries of finance, health, medical and family welfare, irrigation, land and revenue, commercial taxes, mining, municipal administration and urban development, industries, information technology, and electronics and communication,” any blame for the poor performance of the projects lies “squarely with the state government of Telangana, which did not allocate its share as a part of the matching grant for the Smart Cities projects.”
The Telangana government’s annual budget statement revealed “the apathy for Smart Cities projects,” with the finance minister in last year’s budget acknowledging that the matching state share in 2019 and 2020 has been nil.
“The Kalavakuntala family of the Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is better advised to focus on the government of Telangana and the allocations made, rather than blame the Government of India,” Kishan Reddy said.
…
