Telangana government drops cheap liquor, plans new districts

The Cabinet decided to spend Rs 81,000 crore on irrigation projects in the next three years, with a budget allotment of Rs 25,000 crore every year starting from 2016-17, with an aim to utilise the Godavari and Krishna waters to the maximum possible extent.

The Cabinet, which met at the Secretariat on Wednesday after nearly three months, deliberated for over four hours to take decisions on crucial issues like the Telangana Water Usage Policy, redesigning irrigation projects, completion of pending projects, construction of 60,000 2BHK houses for poor this year, demilitarising the police force, besides allowing GHMC to issue tenders worth Rs 2,631 crore to construct multi-grade separators and flyovers at 25 busy junctions in the city to ease traffic congestion.

It also decided to set up a committee headed by the chief secretary and comprising Revenue officials, to suggest the number of new districts that need to be created. Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said, “The national population average for setting up a district is 19 lakh now. But in TS it stands at 35 lakh as per the 2011 Census, and the state’s population is 3.50 crore with 10 districts. This necessitates the creation of new districts for administrative and public convenience.”

About city RTC buses, Mr Rao said, “In Hyderabad, TSRTC operates over 3,800 buses and is making losses of Rs 218 crore per year. To overcome these losses, GHMC will takeover bus operations and the GHMC commissioner will be included in the TSRTC management board.” Dismissing the Opposition parties’ criticism on re-designing of irrigation projects, Mr Rao said, “If we don’t redesign the projects on a war footing, TS will soon become a desert. A series of review meetings conducted with irrigation experts and officials has revealed that about 218 barrages have been built on Godavari by neighbouring states, which I will soon expose in the Assembly and before the media. I have gathered complete information with the help of Google Maps.

Mr Rao added that the redesigning process of the projects was about to end and the government would soon come out with a “Telangana Water Usage Policy” to utilise Godavari and Krishna waters for the overall benefit of TS. On cheap liquor, Mr Rao said, “It was proposed only to check gudumba. But since it evoked mixed reactions, we decided against introducing cheap liquor for this year. However, the state will check gudumba by appointing an IG-level officer and special flying squads.”