AP budget anti-Telangana: TRS

Hyderabad, Feb 27 (UNI) Criticising the state budget, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) today demanded that the money earned through sale of lands in Telangana be spent only on the region.

Participating in the budget discussion, TRS member K Pratap Reddy said if two lakh new jobs were created, Telangana should get about 80,000 jobs and Andhra 1.2 lakh jobs. The state government had not even created 2,000 jobs in the past three years, he rued.

Mr Reddy said during the past 50 years, not even a single medical college was started in Telangana region while the same was being set up in Kadapa on a war-footing.

Claiming that the allocation for education, health and agriculture sector had come down, the TRS member said the government was neglecting technical education and medicare.

''There are no doctors in Public Health Centres and no medicines.

The Government has not done anything to solve the flourine problem in Telangana area by providing safe drinking water,'' he said.

Alleging that implementation of GO 610 was moving at a snail's pace, he said the state government had neglected minor and medium irrigation projects on which farmers of Telangana most dependant.

Tanks that were constructed during Kakatiya and Nizam regimes were dug in the Telangana area, he said, adding that even the existing tanks were not able to cater to the needs of the farmers of Telangana due to silting.

While education had totally gone to the corporate sector, corporate hospitals were sucking the blood of gullible patients as there were no facilities and equipment in government hospitals, CPI leader Chada Venkata Reddy alleged.

Pointing out that neighbouring Tamil Nadu government was providing mid-day meal up to tenth class, Andhra Pradesh was giving only upto fifth class only.

Charging the government with totally neglecting the medical and health sector, the CPI leader said 11,000 posts of doctors were lying vacant. However, he lauded the INDIRAMMA scheme, under which basic amenities were being provided in towns and villages.

Describing the budget as nothing but a gimmick of figures, M A Gafoor of the CPI(M) said though the government had taken up Jala Yagnam, it had no irrigation policy.

The land under cultivation and production of foodgrains had decreased during the past three years, he said and sought the implementation of the Jayati Ghosh report.

UNI