-Minister’s comments against Naidu baseless: Pattabhi
-Covid being given as an excuse for Jagan failures
AMARAVATI: TDP national official spokesman Kommareddy Pattabhi Ram on Wednesday accused Housing Minister Jogi Ramesh of trying to cover up the Government’s failure in the poor people’s housing programme.
Pattabhi Ram said the Minister was levelling false allegations instead of speaking facts and factual figures on very low progress made in housing construction in the State.
Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader slammed Jogi Ramesh for giving Covid as an excuse for lack of progress in Jagananna Colonies. The Minister should explain why AP could complete just 60,783 houses in the last three years while Uttar Pradesh completed 7.51 lakh houses under the PM Awas Yojana followed by Maharashtra with 4.25 lakh and Gujarat with 3.93 lakh.
Pattabhi Ram said that Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri had placed all these factual figures in the Parliament. Jogi Ramesh was avoiding a replay on this. While this was the fact, the Jagan Reddy family media was diverting the public attention, citing the Coronavirus pandemic as the excuse for each and every failure of the YCP regime.
The TDP leader strongly objected to Jogi Ramesh levelling abusive allegations against Chandrababu Naidu, Ramoji Rao, Radha Krishna and B.R. Naidu. The Minister should have checked the facts before making allegations that some sections of the media did not write though the Chandrababu regime did not construct enough houses.
Pattabhi asserted that over 7.82 lakh houses were completed during the five years of Chandrababu’s rule from 2014-`19. This was as per the reply given by the then Housing Minister Ranganatha Raju in the State Assembly on November 23, 2021. How could Jogi Ramesh say that no houses were constructed during that period?
Decrying the Government’s ‘wrong attitude’, the TDP leader demanded that Minister Jogi Ramesh explain to the public why a very low number of 60,783 houses were completed against a target of 15.60 lakh in the first phase. The Minister should clarify why only 5,891 Cr was spent on housing against a budgetary allocation of Rs. 12,023 Cr in the past three years. This was just 49 per cent.
Pattabhi said false advertisements were being given on spending Rs. 50,940 Cr to construct 30 lakh houses by providing 3.10 crore metric tonnes free sand. Till November 2021, just 5.43 lakh mt of free sand was supplied, which was only 2 percent of the total requirement.
