Telangana Govt to order enquiry into construction of Secretariat and Martyrs Memorial

Hyderabad Chief Minister orders enquiry into alleged irregularities in construction projects, defends decisions and criticizes previous government.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said the Government was ordering an enquiry into the construction of the new Secretariat, Martyrs Memorial and the 125-foot-high B.R. Ambedkar statue as there are some allegations of irregularities.

In an informal chat with reporters after the presentation of the budget on Saturday, he said one can understand escalation of the cost but not when the intentions are to make money in the construction. Mr. Reddy has been levelling allegations against these constructions ever since he was in the opposition.

The Chief Minister said the MLAs would be taken to the Medigadda project on February 13 and demanded that the BRS floor leader and former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao should visit the project that has been in the news after the pillars sunk.

He said if the BRS MLAs prefer another date for the visit the government would alter the plan as the intention was to take everyone including the floor leaders of all the parties to show them the present status of the project. Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy would coordinate the visit.

Mr. Revanth Reddy agreed that allocations to agriculture and other sectors have come down as Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka wanted to be realistic. The government doesn’t want to show off with inflated figures like the previous BRS government and wanted to inform people about the realistic situation.

He alleged that the BRS budget was like throwing a party to people after taking debts from everyone. “We don’t want to mislead people with unrealistic figures. Mr. Bhatti got a clear understanding of the budget in just 60 days while Mr. KCR could not get any hang of it even after 10 years,” he said.

Mr. Reddy termed the present financial situation of the State to a debt-ridden farmer committing suicide. The situation in the Irrigation sector is similar to that and Telangana will have to commit suicide for the debt situation.