Hyderabad: Legislative affairs minister D Sridhar Babu has stated that if someone went to court on some demolition by the Hyderabad Disaster Response Assets Monitoring and Protection Agency (HYDRAA) and got favourable orders, the state government would implement that order in its true spirit.
Responding to the allegations and queries raised by the opposition MLAs regarding the state government giving special powers to HYDRAA by introducing the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill 2024 and The Telangana Municipalities (Amendment) Bill 2024 that sought to merge 51 gram panchayats in the assembly on Thursday, December 19, Sridhar Babu made some key announcements.
He clarified saying HYDRAA was only an enabler, and that its officers need not necessarily have any abbreviated three-letter cadre posts. He said that all that the government needed “is an officer who is competent enough.”
He said that merging 51 gram panchayats living within or close to the outer-ring road (ORR) with their respective municipalities was taken in view of the character of villages experiencing rapid urbanisation changing.
He said that new municipalities like Chevella, Moinabad, Mancherial, Kohir, Kesamudram, Maddur, Gaddapotharam, Station Ghanpur, Aswaraopeta, Edulapalem and Devarkadra were being formed to meet the needs of the changing form of the villages.
Answering a query by Maheshwaram MLA P Sabitha Indra Reddy on the issue of GO 111, Sridhar Babu replied saying the case was presently in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and was yet to get relaxation from the Supreme Court.
The two bills, in addition to the Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024 were passed into legislation through a voice vote, as most of the BRS and MIM MLAs staged a walk-out of the assembly in protest against HYDRAA.
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State’s liabilities with differing numbers
The short discussion of the day which consumed most of the day was on the state’s liablities. The discussions were so elaborate, with frequent interruptions and diversions from all sides of the political spectrum, that the Telangana Bhu Bharathi Record of Rights in Land (Amendment Bill) that was to be passed on Thursday, was pushed to Friday.
During the discussion on state’s liabilities, both the BRS and Congress presented differing numbers.
While deputy chief minister and finance minister Bhatti Vikramarka claimed that Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao was trying to mislead the people by saying that the state government has borrowed Rs 1,27,208 crore in the last one year.
Bhatti’s claimed that the BRS government has accumulated a total debt of Rs 6,71,757 crore during its 10 years rule. In addition to that, he said that the state government was yet to pay bills amounting to Rs 40,154 crore, which would put the total liabilities at Rs 7,11,911 crore.as a result of BRS government’s 10 years of rule.
He further alleged that Harish Rao, when he was the finance minister, had included a column with data of “tentative risk weighted outstanding guaranteed amount” in the budget books tabled during his tenure,
“The BRS government deliberately showed less risk for loans obtained by BRG government by showing government guarantees. For example, they got Rs 1,314.46 crore loan by showing only 5% tentative risk, which meant the government had to pay only Rs 65 crore as interest and principal per year, but we ended up paying Rs 693 crore towards the end. So who was at a loss,” he questioned.
He also cited the reports of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the finance department, where they had stated that no information was available for auditing with the then state government. He also alleged that Acts were amended by the BRS government to secure more loans by misreporting the numbers.
Citing the Reserve Bank of India’s handbook of statistics document, Harish Rao asserted that the total loans obtained during BRS government was just Rs 4,17,000 crore.
He pointed out that Rs 72,658 crore inherited by Telangana government from the undivided AP in 2014, state government guaranteed loans of Rs 15,000 crore, and even the debt of Rs 15,118 crore obtained between December 7, 2023 and March 30, 2024 by Congress, were added in BRS’ debt basket.
The members from various political parties called out the discrepancies in the numbers disclosed by both the sides and the RBI reports.
