Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar today presided over two critical meetings at the BRKR Bhavan - one was a state-level meeting with the Committee on Remunerative Approaches For Agriculture and Allied Sectors' Rejuvenation (earlier known as the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana), and the other was regarding GST tax collection in the state.
At the first meeting, the committee sanctioned proposals pertaining to the state's agriculture, horticulture, and veterinary departments which were in keeping with the norms outlined by the Government of India on the same. Matters regarding crop procurement and MSP were also discussed.
Secretary (Agriculture & Co-operation) Janardhan Reddy, Secretary to Government Anitha Rajendra, Secretary (Fisheries) Lachiram Bhukya, Commissioner (Horticulture & Sericulture) Venkat Ram Reddy, Director (Veterinary & Animal Husbandry) V Laxma Reddy, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University representative K B P Raghavender, and P V Narasimha Rao Telangana Veterinary University representative A Bhagwan were among the officials who attended the meeting.
The meeting comes shortly after CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka's
recently-concluded fourteen-day-long Raitulatho Mukhamukhi program ended up knocking over a can of particularly unpleasant worms regarding agrarian issues in the state.
The Chief Secretary also held a coordination meeting with the central and state GST officials regarding tax collection in Telangana.
Kumar claimed that if the officials of the state government and the union government worked together, the tax collection was likely to improve significantly, following which it was decided that the two groups of officials would hold weekly meetings to monitor the progress of the tax collection drive to improve co-ordination.
The CS also expressed his hope that along with the ongoing "focused revenue drives" being conducted by special teams to collect taxes, the coordinated efforts of the state and central officials would act to enhance revenue collection.
Principal Commissioner (CGST - Hyderabad) D Purushotham, Commissioner (CGST - Hyderabad) Mallika Arya, Commissioner (CGST - Medchal) N Sridhar, Commissioner (Service Tax - Secunderabad & Rangareddy) M R R Reddy, Commissioner (Commercial Tax) Neetu Kumari Prasad and several other officials attended the meeting.
Before today's meeting, the CS had met the officials of the state's commercial taxes department on February 14, and had instructed them to
restart the revenue collection drive in Telangana. He also asked them to "rededicate" themselves to the task of revenue realisation during the next 45 days to achieve the state's desired revenue targets.