Cabinet Meeting: KCR Offers Sops, Wants Austerity

The Telangana State Cabinet, which met on Saturday for the first time in 2016, decided to set up a medical college in the Mahabubnagar district, upgrade 92 urban health centers to town-level primary health centers with extended facilities, and fill posts in various departments to provide better governance.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who chaired the Cabinet meeting at the Secretariat, is also learnt to have given his nod for the recruitment to fill vacant posts in the health sector to boost medical services for people across the State.

The Cabinet also discussed the State budget, and focused on austerity measures. Stressing the need for reduction in non-plan budget allocations, KCR reportedly asked the ministers and officials to come up with proposals to slash expenditure to the extent possible.

The State government is also likely to waive the power and water bill arrears of poor people living in the GHMC limits, and also bring street vendors and hawkers under the Medium and Small Business Act, it is learnt.

The number of schemes should be decreased, and the freed-up staff shifted to other departments burdened with heavy work and services, KCR said.

He also asked the ministers to tour the districts and create need-based proposals for them.

Regularisation of contract staff, hiking salary for outsourcing staff, double-bedroom houses for the poor, sanitation in the twin cities and steps to make Hyderabad a global city, flagship programs like Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya, fetching more funds from the Centre, drought, agriculture and suicides were other issues that prominently figured in the Cabinet meeting.