Hyderabad: The Winter Session of the Telangana Assembly began on Monday, December 29, with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo and former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) making his first appearance as the Leader of the Opposition, even as the Vidhan Sabha saw a muted start.
Ever since the Congress came into power, KCR has maintained a conscious decision to stay away from attending the Legislative Assembly. His return to the House signals a heated Winter Session ahead.
KCR was accompanied by his party MLAs, including his son and party working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) and Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy walked up to KCR and greeted him by shaking his hands. State ministers, including N Uttam Kumar Reddy, D Sridhar Babu and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, along with Congress MLAs, also met the veteran leader.
Before proceedings began, members of the Assembly observed a two-minute silence for former MLAs R Damodar Reddy and Konda Laxma Reddy, who passed away recently.
Proposals to merge municipalities within the Outer Ring Road (ORR) limits into the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), doubling the number of GHMC wards from 150 to 300, removal of the two-child norm for contesting local body elections, amendment to the Telangana Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act and undertaking employee rationalisation are among the government’s key focus areas.
During the Zero Hour, Harish Rao accused the administration of neglecting government employees and flagged delays in the release of pending dearness allowances (DA) and arrears, failing to implement the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) and the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
He also sought restoration of the police health insurance scheme with access to corporate hospitals.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Ahmed Balala urged the government to release overseas and post-Class 10 scholarships for students. He said that the institutions are facing a faculty crunch and are on the verge of closing down, since they are unable to pay salaries to teachers. “This is causing a lot of trouble for the students. Since the fee reimbursement is halted, educational institutions have withheld their certificates,” the Malakpet MLA said.
Responding to the MLA, Telangana Minorities Welfare Minister Mohammed Azharuddin said he has noted the concerns and will pay attention to them.
After a brief Zero Hour, Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar adjourned the House till January 2. The Assembly will take a break from December 30 to January 1 and resume proceedings on January 2.
Later, KTR addressed the media outside the Assembly, saying his party is ready to hold discussions on the Krishna and Godavari river water sharing and irrigation projects. He said that agreeing to share 45 TMC of the Krishna water would be detrimental to the state.
Launching a scathing attack on the CM, KTR said the latter lacked basic knowledge of river basins and irrigation projects. “Water management is not something one can master by studying a file for four days; it requires love for the state,” he remarked.
He raised concerns over alleged damage to the Medigadda barrage, questioned the absence of an inquiry despite engineers’ complaints, and named a construction firm involved in related works.
KTR said there was a deliberate attempt to stall the Palamuru–Rangareddy project in order to deny any credit to the previous BRS government.
On allegations of phone tapping, the former IT Minister accused the government of using Special Investigation Teams (SIT) as a bait to divert people’s attention from the real issues. “What has been achieved through so many investigations? Has even one allegation been conclusively proven?” he asked, adding that people clearly see through these diversionary tactics.
