Geeta Reddy slams govt over Basara IIIT food poisoning issue

Hyderabad: Former minister and veteran Congress leader Dr J Geeta Reddy on Wednesday slammed the State government over its failure to prevent food poisoning incidents at the Basara IIIT.

Speaking to media persons at Gandhi Bhavan along with NSUI state president Balmuri Venkat, she said that the students of all residential hostels of the State were suffering from polluted food and water problems. She asked the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who is in holding a father figure position in the eyes of the students, is he ever cared to visit any of the hostels of Telangana after coming into power and added that the food poisoning incident of Basara would not have happened if the CM visited the hostels.

Geeta alleged that the State Health minister T Harish Rao did not visit the residential hostel from his Siddipet district even after a similar food poisoning incident took place. She claimed that the mess contractor of the Siddipet residential hostel was a relative of a State minister. She made it clear that students are the treasure of the country and added that shortage of funds was also one of the reasons for the food poisoning incidents. She alleged that the State government was ignoring the personal issues of the students and added that the mess of Basara IIIT was a big scam. Geeta demanded the CM to visit the residential hostels of the students like his visited the flood hit areas of the State recently.

Balmuri Venkat said that a total of nine food poisoning incidents took place in the residential hostels of the State during the last two months. He claimed that several students were cancelling their admissions after observing that food being served to them by the erring mess contractors. He alleged that the State government was carrying out physical attacks on them whenever they questioned its faults and wrongdoings. Balmuri demanded the State Education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy to visit the hostels of the State and alleged that a scam of Rs 90 crore took place at Basara IIIT.