Harish Rao slams Centre, no BJP-ruled state giving pension to poor

HYDERABAD: Telangana Finance and Health Minister T Harish Rao slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party for its stance on 'freebies' provided by State governments and questioned how the Centre could waive off Rs. 12 lakh crore loans incurred by corporates.

The Finance Minister said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was fulfilling the election promise of increasing pension to Rs. 1,000 from Rs. 200 (being provided in the Congress regime) in 2014 and to Rs. 2,016 in 2018.

Speaking at the Asara pension distribution program held in Sangareddy on Thursday, Harish Rao said that no State in the country was extending financial assistance to the poor on par with the TRS government. He mentioned the statistics of pension provided in the TDP and the Congress regime and said that they did not provide the financial assistance as per the needs.

Harish Rao asked how much pension the BJP-ruled States were providing to the poor despite being double engine governments and said that the BJP government was giving Rs. 600 as pension to the elderly, which was far less than that of what the Telangana government was providing. The minister highlighted various schemes in Telangana such as Shaadi Mubarak, Kalyana Lakshmi and KCR Kit extended to women at the time of wedding and pregnancy.

Saying that the government had recruited 1.30 lakh posts in the State, Harish Rao said that the government had notified 91,000 jobs and gave approval for 58,000 jobs including Group 1, Group 2 and other executive posts. He assured the youth that notification for 9,000 Group 4 jobs along with DSC and teacher jobs would be soon given. Harish Rao took a dig at BJP for failing to fulfil their promise of employing 2 crore youth every year.

The program was attended by district Collector Sarath, Additional Collector Rajaharsha, Zilla Parishad Chairman Manju Sri, Jaipal Reddy, former MLA Chinta Prabhakar, DCMS Chairman Siva Kumar, CDS Chairman Buchi Reddy, and other dignitaries.