Ponnam seeks additional budget for Transport, BC Welfare departments

Hyderabad: In the wake of increased occupancy because of the free bus travel facility to women and Congress’ promise of giving one tola gold under the Kalyanalakshmi scheme, Transport and BC Minister Ponnam Prabhakar on Tuesday urged Deputy CM M Bhatti Vikramarka to allocate additional budget.

At the budget preparatory meeting he sought additional funding to RTC to procure new buses and for other facilities. The minister said on an average daily 27 lakh women were travelling in buses. Stating that the free bus service was being provided in 80% buses, he said everyday nine lakh passengers were getting added. This is leading to decrease in revenue and increased expenditure.

Prabhakar said the government should also provide bank loans and take steps to fill vacancies. Steps should be taken to pay money pertaining to bonds, PF, CPS dues of the employees. He said the employees were striving for growth of the corporation; the Samakka Saralamma jatara was a big task for them; the focus should be on providing pending DAs to them. He urged the Deputy CM to give good news to the employees in this regard and to pay salaries to on first day of month.

On the Transport department, he pointed out that the revenue had increased during the previous year. He said the revenue decreased with buses getting registered in other States. He sought government permission to collect user charges for construction of new department buildings. On BC Welfare Prabhakar said the Kalyanalakshmi funds need to be increased because of the promise of one tola gold along with monetary benefit being provided to a beneficiary. The discussion was mainly on BC residential schools, Kalyanalakshmi and BC scholarships. The minister wanted a budget for taking up BC Census, buildings for BC study circles in erstwhile districts. He said the government has to take a decision on the party‘s BC declaration.