Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accord national status to the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project and grant Rs 20,000 crore as financial assistance from the Centre.
KCR who met the Prime Minister on Friday and held 50 minutes long discussion raised 10 different pending projects and issues including the separate High Court for Telangana and Centre’s nod for increasing the reservation quota for Muslims and the scheduled tribes to 12%.
The Chief Minister drew attention of the Prime Minister to the importance of Rs 80000 crore Kaleshwaram project which will irrigate 18 lakh acres of land in 20 district apart from supplying the water for drinking and industrial purposes. KCR informed the Prime Minister that the state had allocated Rs 25000 crore in the budget and arranged another Rs 22000 crore from financial institutions for the project. As the project requires more fund he urged the Prime Minister to provide assistance from the Centre.
KCR also informed the Prime Minister that following the bifurcation of the state all other statutory bodies including the state public service commission were divided but separate High Court was yet to be formed and the common High Court in Hyderabad was serving both the states.
He also pointed out that the people and the government of Andhra Pradesh were also demanding their own separate High Court. Presently of the 29 High Court judges only six were from Telangana while the ratio should have been 60:40.
Another important demand of KCR was to hand over the defence lands to Telangana state. He asked the prime minister that Bison Ground land should be handed over to the state to build a new Secretariat. The defence ministry had agreed to hand over the required land for the widening of National Highway No 1 and 44 but it was yet to be implement, KCR told the Prime Minister.
His other demands include funds for the ITER, setting up triple IIIT in Karimnagar, granting approval for IIM in the state, setting up Jawahar Navodya school in every new district, issuing a new presidential order to implement the new zonal system in the sate for public employment and education, expeditious completion of new railway lines and funds for the backward districts in the state.