Daunting tasks lie ahead for TRS government

Hyderabad: The TRS government is facing major administrative and political challenges three years after completing its second consecutive term.

After making a not so successful attempt to forge opposition unity against BJP during the last general elections, KCR took oath as the Chief Minister for the second consecutive term on December 13, 2018 after winning 88 out of 119 Assembly seats. He finally decided to focus his attention on the development of the State.

Despite landslide victory, the Chief Minister had inducted Mohd Mahmood Ali as Home Minister in the cabinet and waited for almost ten months to constitute a full cabinet. This had invited a lot of criticism from political circles. The first year (2019) of the KCR 2.0 regime moved smoothly. But since 2020, it has been a roller-coaster ride following the first wave of the corona pandemic which had badly impacted the state economy.

The government had to struggle to meet its financial requirements. The only option it had was to depend on institutional borrowings from the RBI and other financial institutions. However, the government gave top priority to welfare schemes despite financial constraints. The revenue loss in 2020-21 financial year is estimated to be Rs 50,000 crore. Just when the government felt that things were getting back on track, the second wave had struck yet another blow. On the political front too, it has been a testing time for the TRS.

The results of the bypoll of Dubbaka, the GHMC elections and the latest bypoll of Huzurabad in which the BJP had shown good performance and has been trying to strengthen its foothold in the State has caused concern to the ruling party. Though the TRS had won the Nagarjuna Sagar by-election and other local body elections, it appears to be poised to win all the seats in the just-concluded MLC elections under Local Authorities Constituency, the year 2022 likely to be a year where all political parties would be focussing more on the next general elections towards end of 2023, the government now has a some major challenges before it like filling 50,000 jobs and implement the Dalit Bandhu scheme which requires at least Rs 20,000 crore per year from next financial year. Another issue is unemployment dole which it had promised in its manifesto.

On the positive side, the TRS government had revamped the revenue department and launched Dharani portal. It had also successfully disbursed Rytu Bandhu scheme during last three years and is going ahead to complete the ultra-modern new State Secretariat complex. However, the next two years, analysts predict that it is going to be a tough time for TRS due to opposition onslaught on issues like job notification and implementation of Dalit Bandhu scheme as well the ongoing paddy procurement controversy.

Though KCR had been blaming the Centre for its alleged dual procurement policy and made MPs protest inside and outside Parliament during the present winter session, it could not change the Centre's stand.