Telangana: Budget session to continue till Tuesday

The budget session, which began on Thursday with the Governor's address, will have the Motion of Thanks passed on Friday. On Monday, the members will discuss the budget, followed by the Appropriation Bill on Tuesday

Hyderabad: The budget session will be conducted till Tuesday and Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka will present the vote on account budget on Saturday.

The budget session, which began on Thursday with the Governor’s address, will have the Motion of Thanks passed on Friday. On Monday, the members will discuss the budget, followed by the Appropriation Bill on Tuesday. The schedule was discussed by the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which met under chairmanship of Speaker G Prasad Kumar after the Governor’s address here on Thursday.

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Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, BRS Station Ghanpur MLA Kadiyam Srihari, AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu, CPI MLA from Kothagudem K Sambasiva Rao and others participated in the meeting.

However, the Legislative Affairs Minister objected former Minister T Harish Rao’s entry into the meeting, citing the list of names referred by parties for attending the meeting. In response, Harish Rao reminded that in the past, when a legislator could not make it to the BAC meeting, another legislator was permitted to attend the meeting.

“Please refer the records in case of any doubts,” Harish Rao said, also stating that Leader of Opposition K Chandrashekhar Rao had called the Speaker over phone and informed him that he would not be able to make it to the BAC meeting and that Harish Rao would attend it instead of him. Harish Rao then walked out of the Speaker’s chambers.

Defending Sridhar Babu’s objection, the Chief Minister said the Speaker would decide as to who can participate in the BAC meeting. The BRS had initially communicated that its president K Chandrashekhar Rao and Kadiyam Srihari would be participating in the BAC meeting but former Minister T Harish Rao turned up for the meeting, the Chief Minister said.

Meanwhile, finding fault with the State government for conducting the budget session for only four days, Kadiyam Srihari said there would not be sufficient time to have discussions or debates on white papers. To this, the State government responded that if required, another BAC meeting would be conducted on Tuesday and a decision would be taken accordingly.

Many first time MLAs were coming to the Assembly and there was no opportunity for them to raise issues of their constituencies. There was also no clarity on discussing people’s issues through short notice as well, Srihari told the media, stating that there were issues, including drinking water shortage in villages, irrigation water supply to fields and power supply that had to be discussed.

“But the State government wants to conclude the session in four days,” Srihari said.