‘Telangana has a failed govt,’ says Piyush Goyal, slams KCR

Hyderabad: Union minister for food and public distribution Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday that the central government is trying to improve centre-state relationships, but the government of Telangana is completely non-cooperative.

He also remarked that the TRS government led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is a “failed government.”

The minister further slammed the TRS government for not distributing additional rations of 5kgs rice since April.

“Only using foul language against the Prime Minister and all of us does not do any good to the public. People are benefitted when the centre takes care of the poor. The state government should have implemented the scheme honestly. We wrote several letters and spoke with them but they continued to not dispense. They have taken away the rights of the poor. Besides, some mills were found during the audit to have poor rice storage. The state government was asked to act against it, they did not do that also,” he said.

The Union Minister, however, added that the state government, following pressure from the centre to resume the implementation of the scheme, has distributed the foodgrains for the month of June and has promised to do the same for July as well.

“It is a failed government in the state of Telangana. We had to put a lot of pressure on the state government to resume it. They have distributed the grains for the month of June and have promised to do the same for July as well. I expect that the rights of the poor will be given to them,” he said.

The Union Cabinet had in March this year extended PM-GKAY for another six months till September 2022.

Goyal said that the central government conducted an audit and found that certain mills don’t store rice properly and even do adulteration.

“In some mills, wrong stocks were being declared. When the Centre told the state government to act, they did not act,” he said. He said the Centre had to force them to distribute rations and that shows what kind of government is functioning in Telangana.

He added that the Central government had announced additional rations of 5kgs after the Covid-19 pandemic under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) along with regular food grains. Still, Telangana stopped distributing these additional rations in April.

Andhra government has also promised to distribute additional ration under PMGKY, he said.

(With agency inputs)