Huzurabad Bypoll fever makes State admin plod

Hyderabad: The Huzurabad bypoll appears to have an impact on the state administration as the date for the poll approaching faster. Since Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the TRS leadership will be focussing on winning the election, the administration is likely to move at a snail's pace.

Officials observed that there has been a kind of slowdown in clearance of files from the first week of September as the Chief Minister had gone to New Delhi to lay the foundation stone for the TRS building in Vasant Vihar and stayed back for a few days there. The pending files include those pertaining to pay hike to contract and outsourcing employees, clearance of long-pending bills and development projects.

The focus of the entire administration now is on the Dalit Bandhu scheme which is going to be a gamechanger in the poll-bound Huzurabad segment. The Chief Minister is enquiring about the release of funds to Huzurabad and the progress in implementation of the scheme.

It is learnt that on the instructions of the CM, the State Finance department has stopped the release of funds to other departments. As a result, long-pending bills could not be cleared. The allocations for the improvement of health infrastructure and other needs mainly for the constituency development funds (CDF) would also have to wait till the bypoll is over.

Sources said that KCR has postponed his visit of districts to review the development activities. More over he is in midst of the monsoon session of the State Assembly which would conclude on October 5. Soon after that, he would be busy with the bypoll. Hence, all issues mainly the release of funds and approvals of projects would be taken up only in November, a senior official said.