TRS MP B Vinod Kumar, on Friday, introduced a private member bill in Lok Sabha seeking the Centre to accord special status to the newly formed Telangana State. He also asked the Centre to announce adequate financial package to the new State.
TRS member Vinod Kumar introduced the Bill for providing special category status to Telangana to promote welfare of SC, ST and other backward section in Lok Sabha. In the Bill, the TRS MP stated that the Telangana region in the undivided Andhra Pradesh had faced severe infrastructure and developmental problems, drought and farmers suicides and to address these challenges financial assistance in various forms is required from the Centre, particularly under the backward region grant fund, which has since been discontinued.
“With nine out of the ten districts being officially designated as backward, the State of Telangana should be accorded special category status,” he further stated. The TRS member recalled that the Section 94 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, provides that the Centre shall support both AP and Telangana States, in their development endeavour through various measures, including tax, incentives.
“Hence, the special package which has been provided to AP should therefore be extended to Telangana State too,” he said. Vinod Kumar further said that as the condition being faced by Telangana was similar to those being faced by the people in certain parts of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, it becomes necessary that special plans like the Koraput-Bolangir-Kalahandi (KBK) special plan of Odisha and the Bundelkhand plan for Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh should also be implemented in Telangana.
Meanwhile, Congress member from AP, T Subbarami Reddy, in his private member Bill in Rajya Sabha stated that circuit bench of the Supreme Court in Visakhapatnam city would provide access to litigants from southern India. In fact, the Supreme Court had already brushed aside entreaties to open branches in other parts of the country.
Source: The New Indian Express