Hyderabad: Union coal minister G Kishan Reddy on Monday outlined a series of major infrastructure and development initiatives for Telangana, announcing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon lay the foundation stone for the third phase of the MMTS project connecting Hyderabad with the pilgrimage town of Yadagirigutta.Addressing the media at the state BJP office, Kishan Reddy accused major political parties of misleading the public by portraying the Union Budget as being focused only on freebies. He said the budget was framed with the vision of a ‘developed India’ and not with an eye on elections. Highlighting housing support for the state, the Union minister said the Centre had sanctioned 4.5 lakh houses for Telangana under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. This includes 1.3 lakh houses in urban areas and three lakh in rural regions, with a total outlay of ₹4,350 crore. R&D gets big boostKishan Reddy also pointed to significant allocations for research and advanced technology. The Union Budget has earmarked ₹406 crore for the Atomic Minerals Directorate and nearly ₹3,000 crore for premier institutions such as the Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials and the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics. Emphasising Hyderabad’s emergence as a ‘hub of hubs’ for information technology, education and healthcare, he cited initiatives such as the ₹10,000 crore BioPharma Shakti programme and the proposed upgradation of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research. He said major infrastructure projects in Telangana would continue to receive central support, including national highway works worth ₹42,000 crore and the ₹10,297 crore Hyderabad-Vijayawada corridor. On the AIIMS Bibinagar project, Kishan Reddy said the institute is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The facility has 750 beds and is equipped with advanced medical equipment, with several key services already operational. A 24-storey hostel complex is under construction, over 1,000 staff members have been recruited, and emergency services with 220 beds have been operational since Jan 1. He alleged that both Congress and BRS had exploited and mismanaged Singareni Collieries for their own interests. He also said ministers were divided over the Naini coal tenders.
