Vijayawada: Congress questions need for costly guesthouse

Vijayawada: At a time, when there are no funds even to pay salaries and pensions why the government was contemplating to build a massive guesthouse at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) wondered here on Friday.

Dr N Tulasi Reddy, working president of APCC, said in a statement here that the government was not in a position to pay salaries to the employees and pensions to the retired and the arrears for the March and April are still pending.

The salaries should be paid on the first of every month but in July the salaries were paid on 10th and in August it was paid on 5th. Moreover, the PRC was not implemented and the promise to implement the old pension scheme abolishing the CPS is yet to see the light.

Under these circumstances, what is the need to build a massive guesthouse in 30 acre at Visakhapatnam, he wondered.

He said that the existing advisors are sitting idle without any work and people like Ramachandra Murthy are leaving. Now what is the necessity of appointing new advisors making a dent into the exchequer? The government had spent Rs 101 crore in the last 12 months on advertisement out of which the lion's share of Rs 52 crore went to Sakshi newspaper which is nothing but nepotism and waste of public funds.