VIJAYAWADA: The meeting of the high-powered committee, constituted by the State government to study the GN Rao Committee and Boston Consulting Group reports on decentralised development, scheduled to be held on Monday has been postponed to Tuesday due to non-availability of some ministers. The committee will meet on Tuesday and submit its report to the Cabinet, which will meet on Wednesday.
The 16-member high-powered committee is headed by Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy and several ministers and senior officials including the Director-General of Police and Chief Secretary are it members.
Some of the ministers, who are part of the committee, are not available on Monday, prompting the officials to postpone the meeting by a day, sources said. Fisheries and Marketing Minister Mopidevi Venkataramana, one of the members of the high-powered committee, had left for Wagah border to receive the released AP fishermen, who were detained by Pakistan for allegedly entering its territorial waters. Apart from Mopidevi, some other ministers too are not available in Amaravati, sources said.
Meanwhile, upping the ante against TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Cabinet ministers hailing from Dalit community lashed out at the Leader of the Opposition for making “derogatory remarks” against Commissioner, Municipal Administration department, Vijay Kumar, who read out the BCG report at a press conference a few days back.
Ministers P Viswaroop, Taneti Vanitha, Adimulapu Suresh, K Narayana Swamy and Mekathoti Sucharitha, in a release, said as a government official it was the duty of Vijay Kumar to read out the report.
“The criticism of Chandrababu Naidu against the report itself was unwarranted. Moreover, Naidu’s remarks against a Dalit IAS officer show his caste arrogance,’’ they said and added that Naidu in the past also made derogatory remarks against SCs and BCs. They alleged Naidu was aware of the caste of Vijaya Kumar and that he made the comments intentionally.
“His comments against the IAS officer prove that Naidu, who claims to have 40 years of experience in politics, does not respect Dalits,” they alleged. They demanded that Naidu meet Vijay Kumar and apologise in front of the media or else they will seek action under the SC/ST Act.