Eatala rebuts Oppn charges against govt

Hyderabad: Health Minister Eatala Rajender brushed aside the charges of the opposition benches that the State government has presented the vote-on-account budget with an eye on the ensuing parliament elections.Replying to the discussion on the budget in the State Legislative Council here on Saturday, he said, reasons for presenting vote-on-account budget have been given in the budget speech. 

But, members from the opposition benches continue to blame the government for earmarking meagre allocations to education, health and other sectors. He said the TRS government feels that there will be a coalition government at the Centre after the parliament elections as no single party in a position to come back to power.Further, some Central schemes are scrapped and new ones are introduced. Also, the TRS is hoping to play a key role in the formation of the government at the Centre. 

So, it is hoping to tap more funds from the new government just the way Tamil Nadu had benefitted by adopting such a stand.Reiterating that the government is committed to fulfilling its commitments given to the people and electoral promises made earlier. It may not be possible to do everything in one go like the crop loan waiver. Taking a dig at the BJP, he said political parties might roll out several schemes. But, whether schemes are useful to people and whether they have satisfied the expectations of people is what matters. 

For this, the TRS was blessed for the second time by voting into power. "We will waive the crop loan in four instalments," he clarified in response to a question raised by the Congress MLC Shabbir Ali. Rajender said we tried to take-over the outstanding agricultural term loan of the farmers by standing guarantee to it. However, the Centre is not allowing the same. This is forcing the State government to repay the loan amounts in four instalments. 

The Centre is not allowing the Telangana State government to stand guarantee for Rs 17,000 crore. But, at the same time, it is standing guarantee to the banks for thousands of crores of loans taken by a handful of people, he said.Rajender said necessary steps have been taken up to study the issue of increasing the retirement age to 61 and providing unemployment allowance. 

Similarly, a series of efforts were made to improve the quality of education and health infrastructure in the State, he said. He assured BJP MLC N Ramachander Reddy, Congress MLA Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, AIMIM MLC Syed Jafri and others that the government will focus on all sectors at the time of presenting the full budget.