Kishan Reddy Rebuts TRS Charges About Funds For Flood Relief

The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy today rebutted the allegations of Telangana's ministers against the union government claiming lack of support from it for the flood relief efforts.

Speaking to the media in New Delhi, he said that the ministers were making baseless allegations against the BJP-led union government.

First of all, any money spent, whether by the state government or the union government, was public money, he pointed out.

He then added that the union government had asked the state government that to spend money from its state disaster fund first, and that any money from the union government would come after an assessment of the exact damage.

Giving funds to a state without first assessing the loss had never happened in the country, he claimed. There was a specific policy to assess losses, and the union government would give funds to the state upon the basis of the report of a central team which did the assessment, he said.

He said that he was putting special efforts to have central teams sent to the two Telugu-speaking states quickly, and that the the teams would visit Hyderabad and other places on Thursday and Friday.

He also expressed anger that the officials concerned hadn't take any action on his complaints about encroachments along the Musi river.