Hyderabad: Telangana deputy chief minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka minced no words during his speech while releasing the state’s 2024-25 Budget in the ongoing Assembly session. Without naming him, Bhatti, in reference to the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government, said that the state was administered like an “estate of a private landlord” and that it has a legacy of being a badly run and maintained economy.
The deputy chief minister’s remark in the state Assembly during the first budget of the Congress government in Telangana was scathing, as BRS supremo and ex-Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) has always been called a ‘landlord’ for his authoritarian tendencies in the past. Bhatti Vikramarka in his speech went on to claim that Telangana at bifurcation from Andhra Pradesh in 2014 has been reduced to a “pathetic state” on account of the huge loan burden.
“It has reached such a sad state that paying salaries and pensions to employees and pensioners was a big challenge in itself. Because of this in-disciplined attitude and administration of the previous regime people across all sections faced the ill effects and suffered immensely. It was a huge challenge for the newly formed Congress Government to manage the state which was in financial shambles,” said the Telangana deputy chief minister.
Bhati Vikramarka said that after coming to power in last year’s Assembly elections, the Congress government controlled “frivolous expenditure” with a sense of financial discipline. “We made an attempt to streamline the system and to pay the salaries and pensions in a timely manner to 3.69 lakh government employees and 2.87 lakh pensioners from March 2024. This was a first baby step for a better administration,” he added.
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He went on to chide KCR and the BRS for their ‘Bangaru (golden) Telangana’, stating that the two previous BRS governments failed miserably on all fronts. “The debts which were at Rs.75,577 Crores at the time of state formation grew by leaps and bounds in 10 years and reached a humungous figure of Rs.6,71,751 Crores. However, there was no commensurate development,” said Bhatti Vikarmarka during his Budget speech in the Assembly.
His speech also took a dig at KCR’s flagship Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project which the BRS has put forth as a game-changing programme to help solve Telangana’s water issues. “Instead of focusing on maximising the benefits to the state through irrigation projects, they focused on spending money for the benefit of a few. Consequently, the problems in irrigation remained as they were earlier. The state was pushed into a state where it could not use its own water resources efficiently,” said the deputy chief minister.
It may be noted that the Congress from the beginning had alleged of irregularities in the Kaleshwaram project. The BRS won the 2014 and 2018 Telangana Assembly elections, which allowed KCR to continue and build on the schemes that he launched during his first term. However, the two-time chief minister was unable to successfully run for a third time. His appearance in the state Assembly on Thursday was his first as a leader of the opposition.
Bhatti Vikramarka also said that criticism of assurances of implementing social welfare schemes by the Congress government have been disproved as the current government implemented free bus travel for women after coming to power.
“We have increased the limit under Aarogya Sri Scheme for medical treatment from Rs.5.00 lakhs to Rs.10.00 lakhs. It is a mark of our resolve. We are supplying Gas Cylinders under Maha Lakshmi Scheme for Rs.500/- only. We are providing free electricity upto 200 Units and we have also started Indiramma Indlu Scheme to realize the dreams of the poor to own a house. We will implement all other schemes which we have assured to implement,” said the Telangana deputy chief minister.
