Kishan nails KCR family's lies

Hyderabad: Union Minister of Tourism and Culture G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday said that the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's family is peddling blatant lies on the Centre's release of funds to Telangana under Smart Cities scheme.

He said out of Rs 1,000 crore allocated for the smart cities to the State the Centre had released Rs 392 crore. The State government did not release its share of 50 per cent of matching funds to implement the Smart Cities scheme in Warangal and Karimnagar.

Kishan Reddy said that the State government has so far released only Rs 210 crore out of Rs 392 crore of its matching share. Besides, while the Centre had been releasing funds since the 2015-16 financial year, the State government has released its share only after six years during the 2021-2022 financial year, following the pressure mounted by the Centre.

"Even money released by the Government of India towards the Smart Cities Mission has been transferred to the smart cities of Karimnagar and Warangal by the government of Telangana only after a severe lag," said Kishan.

The minister opined that timely release of matching state share contribution of the State government would have ensured Warangal and Karimnagar to have better drainage and sewage facilities which would help them to cope up with the recent floods.

Apart from the Smart Cities Mission, the Centre has also allocated Rs 2,780 crore the under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0, while 66 projects worth Rs 1,660 crore were a part of the approved plan for the first phase of ARMUT covering 12 cities in Telangana.

Taking a dig at the TRS government, he said that the important and critical ministries of finance, health, medical and family welfare, irrigation, land and revenue, commercial taxes, mining, municipal administration and urban development, industries, information technology, and electronics and communication are handled by members of one family. "Never before have many ministerial and administrative powers been vested on one family despite poor performance," he said.

On the Smart Cities Scheme, Kishan said that the state finance ministry and municipal administration and urban development ministry seem to be giving conflicting information.

It exposes and is evident that the Kalvakuntala family of CM KCR deliberately propagates misinformation and lies through social media. The TRS falsely claims that the Centre did not release "even one rupee" in the last three years for smart cities in Telangana. But, facts make it clear that "this blame should squarely lie on the State Government of Telangana which did not allocate its share as a part of the matching grant for the Smart Cities projects in the State", added Kishan.