HYDERABAD: The state government will henceforth earmark a certain amount of money in the annual budget for the welfare of retired soldiers, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has said.
He gave the assurance when around 100 retired soldiers met him on Thursday in the presence of director-general of police Anurag Sharma, Sainik Welfare Officer Srinesh Kumar and others.
While promising to increase the monthly honorarium to the Second World War veterans from Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000, Rao said the government would form a panel with six former soldiers to address the grievances.
Rao said some houses would be reserved for ex-servicemen weaker section houses to be built by the government. He also promised to felicitate solders every year on the occasion of the State Formation Day.
Lashing out at the previous regimes, he alleged that they had neglected Hyderabad. “The previous governments had not even built a good government conference hall except Jubilee Hall. We cannot use Jubilee Hall in the Public Gardens because it is being used for Telangana Legislative Council sessions.
The chief minister’s residence too is not in a proper condition and does not have ample parking space. There are no proper residences for DGP, chief secretary and other government officers.”
He alleged that the rulers of united AP had conspired to see that the irrigation projects in Telangana got mired in inter-state problems, thereby not completing them.
“In the united AP, projects in Telangana were confined to papers. There were glaring mistakes in designing them. Therefore, we have taken up the task of redesigning the irrigation projects,” he explained.
The chief minister claimed that Telangana had emerged as “A1 state” in the country by recording an impressive growth rate in the past one year. In the current financial year the state government was spending Rs 95,000 crore on various heads.
“In future, the state budget will increase to Rs 1.58 lakh crore. All surveys have pointed out that Telagana is A1 state,” he said.