'Housing prog has received pat from Queen Elizabeth II':Minister

Hyderabad, Aug 23 (UNI) Joining issue with the main opposition TDP in Andhra Pradesh, Finance Minister K Rosaiah today said the weaker section housing programme, taken up by the Congress Government in 1979, has in fact won the appreciation of none other than England Queen Elizabeth II.

Maintaining that it was the Congress Government, led by the then Chief Minister Brahamananda Reddy, which initated the housing programme for weaker sections in 1971, mobilising Rs 12 crore loan from the Life Insurance Corporation, he told reporters here that the Queen was very much impressed with the efforts made during the regime of Marri Channa Reddy to provide housing for the poor people in 1979.

The Queen had visited the houses constructed for the poor in neighbouring Rangareddy district in 1983, he said, denying the TDP's claim that it was during the N T Rama Rao regime, that the housing programme received due attention.

He offered to take TDP leader Y Ramakrishnudu and others to the housing colony in Medchal Assembly constituency represented by TDP Legislature Party Deputy Leader T Devender Goud.

Three of the seven people killed in police firing at Mudigonda had been alloted houses during the Brahamanada Reddy regime, he added.

UNI