Telangana Congress checks ongoing Metro Rail works, slams TRS for delay
Hyderabad: Congress senior leaders including PCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, K. Jana Reddy, Shabbir Ali led by former minister Danam Nagendar on Wednesday visited the ongoing Metro Rail works and alleged that the state government had wilfully delayed the project by four years and caused a loss of nearly Rs 4,000 crore to the state’s exchequer.
Leaders went round the Sultan Bazaar and Malakpet sections of the Metro Rail project and headed to the Lakdikapul station where they were prevented by police and Hyderabad Metro Rail staff for some time.
They told the police that they had taken permission from L&T to visit the stations, and that it was ridiculous that they were being stopped from entering the premises.
This led to frayed tempers, and Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the Congress after winning the next elections would take stern action against the officials “who are behaving like TRS activists.” The police later allowed a few of the Congress leaders to visit the station.
Speaking to mediapersons, he said that the previous Congress regime had started the project in 2008 and it was scheduled to become operational by 2014. The TRS government had deliberately delayed the project to prevent the Congress from taking credit for the same.
“Just for cheap political gains, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao deliberately delayed the project by almost four years, causing a huge loss to the exchequer,” Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
He said that the Chief Minister had first obstructed the project by demanding a change in alignment. Later, for unexplained reasons he cleared the project with the same alignment.
By changing his stance frequently, Mr Rao had delayed the project at several stages. “People could have used the service for three years if KCR had not played politics and had allowed the project to be completed in a time bound manner,” he said.
