Congress demands completion of 2BHK

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Friday demanded that the Telangana government first complete the construction of double bedroom houses for poor before constructing new buildings for Secretariat and Assembly.

"What should be the choice for the government between nearly 10,000 housing units for poor families or two buildings for the comfort of just 160 legislators? The choice is clear.

In a democracy, addressing the needs of poor people is more important than providing comfort to legislators, who are public servants," TPCC official spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin said at a press conference.

Nizamuddin said of 2.80 lakh sanctioned double bedroom houses for poor in 31 districts, only 16,370 units have been completed so far. "More than 22 lakh families in Telangana do not own a house.

The State government is unable to deliver promises and sanctioned 2.80 lakh double bedroom houses, for want of funds. Under this scenario, it is nothing but waste of public money to go for construction of new buildings for Assembly and Secretariat," he said.

The Congress leader said Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has tried to weaken the opposition by purchasing some greedy MLAs only to ensure that no one objects to his insane and autocratic decision. However, he said the Congress party would strongly oppose the wasteful expenditure of public money, irrespective of its numbers in the Assembly and Council.

He pointed out the cost for each unit of a double bedroom house was originally estimated to be Rs 3.5 lakh in 2014. It escalated to Rs 7.5 lakh by 2017. If delayed further, the cost will again go up and it would become unviable for the government to complete them.

"The State government must decide whether comfortable seating or other facilities for 120 MLAs and 40 MLCs are important or providing a roof to nearly 10,000 poor families is more important.

With the same Rs 100 crore, proposed to be spent for the new Assembly, nearly 1300-1500 double room units can be constructed with an average cost of Rs 7 to Rs 7.5 lakh per unit.

Similarly, instead of wasting Rs 500 crore on the new Secretariat building, same money can be used to construct nearly 6,000 to 7,000 2BHK units," he said.