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Hyderabad: Telangana’s first Budget session begins today with some bleak statistics on the table. Nearly 350 farmers have committed suicide in the five months since the state came into being, and its water and power shortage is getting worse.
With the massive agriculture crisis on its hands, the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti or TRS government will find it difficult to explain at least one provision that the Budget to be presented today by Finance Minister Etala Rajender is expected to make – an increase in the salary of legislators from Rs. 1.2 lakh to Rs. 2 lakh a month.
The opposition is ready to put the government on the mat in the Assembly for what it calls “gross mismanagement.”
While delayed and deficit rains have played havoc, activists say no fresh bank loans and poor power supply this season have pushed farmers further into despair. “The government should declare an agricultural emergency in Telangana. Unless public and private loans are waived and some confidence-building measures are taken, suicide deaths will continue,” said P Srihari Rao, a social activist.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao or KCR, who promised a “Bangaru (golden) Telangana” when he took over, blames his neighbour, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, for his state’s acute crisis.
“The Andhra Pradesh chief minister has, it seems, taken a vow to deprive Telangana of power and water share, so that crops on our fields dry up. We will not let that happen,” KCR said at a public meeting on Sunday.
Mr Naidu, whose Telugu Desam Party is in opposition in Telangana, said the TRS government has failed to plan ways to combat the shortage of water and power and is now passing the buck.
When Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated to carve out Telangana, a key concern was how water and power would be shared by the two states, which also share a capital in Hyderabad. Both state governments have asked the Centre to resolve the issue.
Source: NDTV