Hyderabad: The state government received the perfect shot in the arm for welcoming 2022 with the Centre going back on its decision to hike GST on textiles and handlooms on Friday. This is a back-to-back success for the TRS government as it was only three days back that the Union government conceded Telangana’s demand to enhance paddy procurement target by six lakh in kharif.
Meanwhile, the state government received praise from the Centre for its policy on Covid testing and also in preventing surge in cases and fatalities.
The Centre observed that the TS government has effectively implemented the ICMR advisory on Covid testing, which says “Based on the earlier experience, it has been observed that if the number of cases rise above a certain threshold, RTPCR-based testing leads to delays in confirming diagnosis.
Therefore, it is encouraged to increase testing by widespread use of rapid antigen test (RATs) in such specific situations where RTPCR testing poses challenges.”
After T.Harish Rao took over as health minister in November, he has been emphasising on ‘test, trace and treatment’ strategy to contain Covid in the state, which has been showing positive results. It was only on Thursday that IT minister K.T. Rama Rao had had strongly demanded the withdrawal of GST hike on textiles and handlooms in his letters to union ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman, a day prior to the GST Council meeting.
