Whose schemes?
BJP leaders from Telangana and the Centre appear to be a confused lot, pushing a section of people from the State, particularly those who follow media, either newspapers or television channels or other sources of information, into the matter of schemes being implemented in Telangana.
Most of the State and Central BJP leaders say repeatedly that schemes being implemented in Telangana are Central schemes and the State Government was just extending them by changing names. And there are some BJP leaders like MP Bhola Singh, who is also BJP’s SC Morcha national general secretary, who recently said, during his visit to the State, that “Telangana is not implementing Central schemes useful to people” and that was why it had faced opposition in the by-elections.
On the other hand, most Union Government officials, who come on State visit, hail the schemes being implemented in TS, leaving people more confused about who’s giving them the benefits!
What a comparison
At a kharif preparedness meeting held in Nalgonda recently, Minister for Energy G. Jagadish Reddy and Telangana Rashtra Rythu Bandhu Samithi (RBS) chairman P. Rajeshwar Reddy made an interesting but provocative remark against the political opponents of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), drawing comparison between monkeys that damage crops and Opposition parties.
Admitting that monkeys are damaging crops in Telangana causing loss to farmers, they said that some politicians have taken to causing damage to the agriculture sector itself by acting like monkeys and making promises, which their parties have failed to implement in States where they are in power and forcing policies which are out to push the farming sector further into crisis.
“Monkeys from the wild are damaging only crops, but political monkeys are destroying the agriculture sector and unfortunately, a herd of such ‘political monkeys’ has come together from Nalgonda itself,” the TRS leaders said, asking people to be wary and cautious about such monkeys than those from the wild.
Grandiose plans
The plan of the railways to give Secunderabad station a facelift as an airport has taken quite a long time. Nonetheless, the first step to execute the project at a cost of ₹653 crore has been taken by inviting tenders. The tenders will close next month but the pre-bid meeting was scheduled on June 21. The grandiose plans include construction of G + three buildings on the northern and southern sides of the station and skyways connecting the Metro stations on the eastern and western ends. Having delivered this good news to an ordinary citizen, what should disappoint the business community was the decision of railways to have limited commercial space in the complex.
(B. Chandrashekhar and N. Rahul)
