Telangana Assembly budget session from Thursday

Hyderabad: The re-design of irrigation projects, implementation of election promises like double bed room houses and farm loan waiver, several opposition MLAs switching loyalty to the ruling TRS, besides the budget, are among the issues expected to dominate the Budget session of Telangana Legislative Assembly beginning here on Thursday.

The state government has taken up re-designing of irrigation projects and entered into an agreement with Maharashtra on Tuesday for construction of five barrages on Godavari and two other rivers. Observing that the agreement with Maharashtra is extremely useful for Telangana, the state government said the projects, upon completion, would immensely benefit farmers of the state.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who travelled to Mumbai on Tuesday to sign an agreement with his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis, said Karimnagar and Warangal districts would benefit first and that Nizamabad district would regain its past glory.

The main opposition Congress, however, slammed the Chief Minister for signing the pact with the Maharashtra government. Leader of Opposition in Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir, who termed the agreement as mega cheating, alleged that it caused injustice to people as the height of the proposed barrages would be decreased to 148 metres from the earlier proposal of 152 meters.

TDP floor leader in the Assembly, A Revanth Reddy alleged yesterday that corruption is taking place in the name of re-designing of projects and that reducing the height of barrages would hurt the interests of Telangana. He has said that his party has identified 21 issues for raising in the assembly, including drought, scarcity of drinking water and alleged faulty implementation of election promises like double-bed room houses for the poor.

As many as 10 MLAs, out of 15, from TDP and several others from Congress and YSR Congress have switched loyalty to the ruling TRS in recent months. Media reports suggested that two more TDP MLAs are likely to cross over to the ruling party in the coming days. Their parent parties have filed disqualification petitions against such MLAs and the issue may also come up in the assembly.

The ruling TRS is, however, on a high after a series of electoral wins, including in Warangal and Khammam civic body polls on Thursday and massive victories in Medak and Warangal Lok Sabha bypolls and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election earlier.

PTI