A remark made by Congress member K. Rajagopal Reddy on the government’s spending on welfare and development schemes led to a heated argument in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday with members of the Treasury Benches rebutting his charges.
Participating in the discussion on the demands for grants, Mr. Rajagopal Reddy said the budget presented by the government was disappointing and had no allocations for major development work, including the construction of irrigation projects. The budget allocated for the key departments would suffice to repay the amounts due to contractors and the government was not in a position to take up any new work in the current fiscal, he said.
“The lack of foresight on part of the government is giving rise to doubts that the situation is turning from bad to worse,” he said, triggering angry protests from the Treasury Benches.
Ministers Vemula Prashanth Reddy and Talasani Srinivas Yadav criticised the Congress member for “not coming out of his contractor mindset” even as Mr. Rajagopal Reddy persisted claiming that the government was not in a position to call for tenders for new work. Finance Minister T. Harish Rao launched a trenchant attack on the Congress members for their “non-serious attitude” in the House and said the budget was designed by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to ensure that there were no cuts for any major development and welfare schemes. “The TRS government is committed to fulfil the promises it made to the people as is evident from the projects that are either completed or in the advanced stage of completion,” he said.
Mr. Harish Rao accused the Congress of indulging in criticism for the sake of criticism and said the party was worried about its survival following the spree of welfare and development activities launched by the TRS government.
The Congress and the TDP governments utilised the irrigation projects for gaining electoral mileage and the governments headed by these parties never spent money allocated for the projects. “For instance, the Pranahita Chevella project received allocation of ₹168 crore in the four years of Congress rule as against the estimated project cost of ₹38,500 crore. This shows the sincerity of the Congress in completing the projects,” he said.