Hyderabad: The TS Cabinet on Thursday decided to introduce six Bills in the Budget Session to replace ordinances issued earlier.
Prominent among them are land acquisition to provide right of way for the Water Grid project, abolishing market panels appointed by the Congress and appointment of Parliamentary secretaries, etc. The Cabinet approved the text of the Governor’s address to the Legislature on March 7.
It also approved to table Budget 2015-16 on March 11. It was also decided to bring reforms in the collection of taxes with TS lagging behind in collection of VAT and commercial taxes and arrears mounting to thousands of crores. A team comprising the commercial taxes minister and officials will tour states to study tax collection methods adopted there.
Sources said Mr Rao referred to the Indiramma Housing scam during the Congress regime and the subsequent CID probe ordered by the TS government to bring out irregularities. Mr Rao told ministers that the government will announce its stand on punishing errant officials and staff involved in the scam in the House itself after taking the opinion of all floor leaders.
Mr Rao also asked ministers to be alert during the session and come to the House well prepared. “During the last session, the performance of some ministers was not up to the mark forcing me and other senior ministers to constantly intervene and answer the opposition. It’s not proper to expect the same again now after running the government for over nine months. It’s better if all ministers come to the House well prepared,” Mr Rao is said to have told the ministers.
He cautioned ministers that opposition parties are likely to create a ruckus over fee reimbursement, scholarships, ration cards, pensions, shifting of the secretariat, auctioning of government lands and buildings etc and the ministers should be well prepared to take on the opposition if they level baseless allegations against the government on these issues. They should submit proper statistics on the successful implementation of schemes and send a clear message to the people, the CM said.
