Telangana No.1 state in welfare, says KCR

Hyderabad, Aug 15: Telangana is the number one state in the country in welfare of the weaker sections as it is spending Rs 30,000 crore annually on various welfare schemes, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said on Monday.

Speaking at the main official function to celebrate 70th Independence Day, he said the government was implementing 35 schemes for welfare of various sections.

He said in a short span of two years Telangana had attracted the national attention with its achievements in development and welfare sectors.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, said the government this year launched new schemes like extending Kalyana Lakshmi to the backward classes. This scheme for providing financial assistance to girls of poor families was so far confined to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs).

The government also established 250 residential schools for SCs, STs and minorities from the new academic year. The Chief Minister said this laid the foundation stone for the programme to provide free education from KG to PG.

KCR reiterated that minorities and STs will be provided reservation in proportion to their population in the state. He said steps would also be taken to improve the socio-economic and educational conditions of these sections as suggested by the two commissions which submitted their reports last week.

He told the gathering that the process to create new districts is on and the government will announce new ones on the occasion of Dussehra.

He claimed that despite the hurdles being created by 'anti-development forces', the government was moving ahead to achieve the goal of 'bangarua' (golden) Telangana.

KCR said the government had launched new irrigation projects and speeded up the ongoing projects to bring one crore acre under irrigation. He also spoke about the initiative taken to sign an agreement with neighbouring Maharashtra to facilitate construction of projects across Godavari river.

He said an action plan had been prepared to provide drip irrigation facility to 1.26 lakh acres this year.

Under Mission Kakatiya, the government has taken up restoration of 46,000 tanks. The work on 8,000 tanks was completed in the first phase.

Under Mission Bhageeratha, the foundation stone of which was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, all villages will get drinking water from Godavari and Krishna rivers by March 2018. Every house will get drinking water and internet facility as the government is laying fiber optic cable along the water pipelines.

KCR said the new industrial policy launched by the state started yielding results as 2,303 industries with an investment of Rs 46,000 crore were approved under the new single window system.

The Chief Minister said Telangana had number one state in the information technology sector with 13.26 per cent growth in software exports during 2015-16. The state achieved 75,000 crore IT exports and earned praises from global giants. He said the state was proud that World Congress of Information Technology will be held in Hyderabad in 2018.

He said the state had also embarked on reforms in administration of government hospitals. The government is spending nearly Rs 6,000 annually on every bed. All the government-run hospitals were being provided new medical equipment at a cost of Rs.600 crore.

KCR said the government was dealing with the anti-social elements with an iron hand. He was all praised for the effective functioning of state police.

The Chief Minister said it was an honour for Telangana that it bagged maximum number of police medals announced on the eve of Independence Day.

IANS