Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday said that there was no threat to his government in spite of some his Cabinet colleagues facing charges for various omissions and commissions allegedly committed during the tenure of late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
“I don’t see any threat to my government in any form and it will survive until 2014 without any problem,” Mr. Reddy maintained while fielding a volley of questions on the fate of his government at a media conference here on the concluding day of his three-day Indiramma Bata programme in West Godavari district.
Takes dig at Opposition
Replying to a question, the Chief Minister said he was yet to take a decision on the resignation of the Roads & Buildings Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao.
The Chief Minister took a dig at the Opposition for targeting the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the multi-crore coal scam.
Describing the two leaders as spotless, he accused the Opposition of blowing the issue out of proportion.
“The CAG’s finding is not the gospel truth and the loss mentioned in its report, amounting to Rs 1.85 lakh crore, was only notional,” he said. Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy said his government had decided to extend bank-linked interest-free loans to sel-hel group women from April 1, this current fiscal, as part of his endeavour to follow the teachings of the Quran, which prohibits levy of interest on loans.
He said over 1.4 crore SHG women were getting benefited from this initiative.
Earlier, the banks were charging 14 per cent interest on the SHG loans.
Special package
Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy sought a special package from the Centre for promotion of oil palm cultivation in the State.
If the Centre provided Rs 10,000 crore as a special package to the State, the latter could help the country save the annual import bill by Rs. 50,000 crore over a period of five years.
Sand shortage
He cited sand shortage as the reason for the slow pace of the modernisation of the Krishna and the Godavari delta systems and announced that a joint meeting with the officials of the Irrigation and Revenue departments would be held shortly to sort out the problem.
