TRS to expose Congress ghost ‘houses’ with probe

Hyderabad: The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti and main Opposition Congress have been engaged in a game of political one-upmanship over the same issue, that is Indiramma houses for poor.

While the Congress is trying to corner TRS for not clearing pending bills of Indiramma houses during the one year of its rule, the TRS government is preparing the ground to pay back Congress in the same coin.

The TRS government, which ordered a CID inquiry last year into irregularities in the scheme during Congress rule from 2004 to 2014 is ready with the report which found grave irregularities in Indiramma houses in constituencies held by Congress eaders and siphoning off funds without constructing houses. 

The CID report is to be tabled in the ensuing Assembly Session to embarrass and corner Congress leaders on the same issue. Some ministers have already started warning Congress leaders that cases will be booked against those who siphoned off public money in the name of Indiramma houses and the amount would be recovered by invoking the Revenue Recovery Act.

“Congress leaders into agitations against the TRS government over Indiramma houses is like a thief calling others a thief. They siphoned off crores of government money without building houses during its 10 years. The CID inquiry is going on and it was found that thousands of houses exist only on paper but bills were claimed for them. There is no question of leaving anyone however big they may be. Cases will be booked and amount will be recovered,” said A.Indrakaran Reddy, the housing minister.

The Congress for the first time took to the streets and launched a mass agitation programmes on a large scale in Telangana against TRS government over Indiramma houses. Starting from TPCC chief N.Uttam Kumar Reddy to all senior Congress leaders like K. Jana Reddy, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, T. Jeevan Reddy, J. Geeta Reddy, D.K. Aruna, took to the streets and demonstrated in front of district collectorates to protest the failure of the government in clearing pending bills of Indiramma houses and not constructing a single house for the poor so far.

Soon after assuming office in June last year, the Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao got a random survey done by officials over Indiramma houses that were built during Congress governments from 2004 to 2014. The survey found that thousands of houses exist only on paper, but bills were claimed in all the districts without any constructions.

Based on this survey, Mr Rao ordered a CID inquiry to probe these irregularities in July last year. The CID which formed teams toured all the districts, inspected houses, conducted an inquiry and completed the investigation. The inquiry found large-scale irregularities and siphoning off public funds.