Telangana reaches breaking point over broken promises, unpaid dues

Public anger in Telangana has reached a tipping point, with widespread protests erupting across sectors from health workers and junior doctors to farmers and panchayat staff. The Congress government faces mounting criticism over unpaid wages, broken promises, and administrative apathy.

Hyderabad: Public discontent, which was simmering for long across Telangana ever since the Congress came to power, has now reached boiling point. The streets of the State capital and district headquarters, which witnessed some sort of protest on a daily basis, stand testimony to this.

What started with farmers taking to the streets in protest against a total lack of effort to ensure irrigation water for their crops, has now spread across the social fabric of Telangana.

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Health workers, police constables, contract staff, ASHA workers, students, junior doctors, private colleges, teachers, Anganwadi workers, contractors, government employees, pensioners, outsourced employees, sports coaches, weavers, auto drivers and even ration dealers are now in open revolt, frustrated with the Revanth Reddy government’s shocking apathy towards promises, unpaid wages and utter mismanagement of resources that once catapulted the country’s youngest State to the top of multiple achievement graphs. None of them can be blamed, and they needed no instigation. Who needs to be instigated when there has been no salary for several months together in a row?

On Tuesday, about 1.1 lakh contract health workers working under the Medical & Health Department staged massive protests outside government hospitals across the State and at the Medical and Health Department headquarters in Koti, demanding salaries that have been pending for five months. Contract employees lashed out at the Congress, calling out the national party for failing to abolish outsourcing agencies as promised in its 2023 election manifesto.

Earlier, ASHA workers had staged protests demanding that the government fix their monthly pay, apart from complaining of delays, lack of job security, denial of benefits like provident fund, excessive workload, use of GPS tracking and broken promises from the manifesto.

Junior doctors too are warning that they will soon join the chorus. Repeated stipend delays are driving many into financial distress, they say, without being able to afford rent, fees or basic needs. With no timely stocking of medicines, and health staff in the agitation mode, the crucial health sector is in a dire situation across the State.

Parallely, private colleges across the State have announced indefinite closure over unpaid fee reimbursement dues. Ration dealers have threatened to close over 17,000 outlets from October 1 demanding pending commissions and gunny bag payments.

Amidst all these, farmers have been enraged for over two months over a continuing acute shortage of urea. Callousness is at its peak as the State and Centre continue to trade blame for the shortage, a situation that farmers in Telangana never faced in the 10 years that the BRS was in power.

Earlier, Telangana for the first time saw a uniformed law keeping force being forced to come out on the streets when constables and their families protested against Revanth Reddy’s mismanagement of the Home department and again, broken promises.

Contractors staged protests inside the Secretariat, another first in the State, over delayed payments. Builders and sarpanches, apart from farmers and weavers, have resorted to suicides triggered by the Congress government’s delay in ensuring work, timely payments and basic facilities.

Panchayat workers have been agitating against non-payment of wages, while daily functioning of panchayats has come to a standstill with no funds released.

Apart from ignoring most of these protests, the Congress government has stuck to one pattern. Announce sub-committees, many of which have not even met or submitted a single report after months, blame the Opposition for “instigating” the public, and mostly, unleash the police on protesters apart from hurling vitriolic abuse at the previous government. Public patience has run out, a fact that Telangana’s streets stand witness to.