Congress MP from Bhongir Komatireddy Venkat Reddy on Monday requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to release funds for various developmental programmes sanctioned by the Centre in his constituency including AIIMS Bibinagar, ITIR Hub and others. He also submitted letters seeking release of funds, sanction of schemes, approvals.
In a meeting with the Union Minister, Mr. Venkat Reddy urged the Centre to sanction ₹1,028 crore for construction of permanent buildings for hospital of medical college of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Bibinagar. On the ITIR Hub sanctioned in 2008 by the previous UPA government, he stated that no effort had been made by the Centre to establish the sanctioned hub even 11 years after the announcement.
Although the Telangana government had been pursuing the issue with the NDA government, no action had been taken yet. He expressed hope that the Centre would recognise the emergence of Hyderabad as the second top hub of IT exports and the establishment of ITIR would further boost the industry.
Explaining that handloom weavers in his constituency were facing challenges with technology upgradation, product diversification and design development to suit the current market trends, the MP pointed out that most of the weavers were moving away from the profession due to lack of modern dyeing facilities and others. Stating that there was a need to protect hereditary artistic skills of weavers in the area, Mr. Venkat Reddy said it needed support from the government.
He stated that the world famous Pochampally “tie and dye” variety of silk sarees, dress material, furnishings were woven by the weavers of his constituency and there were 7,318 handloom weavers and 14,636 handloom ancillary workers had their livelihoods based on the profession. He requested the Union Minister to sanction block level clusters under the National Handloom Development Programme (NHDP) to enable product diversification, revival of languishing weaves and to do value addition.
Mr. Venkat Reddy requested the Union Minister to release ₹1,013 crore under NHDP to seven handloom clusters with over 4,500 looms.
Further, he requested the Centre to give financial approval for developmental works of NH-163, introduction of health insurance scheme exclusively for handloom weavers by including the weavers in the age group of 18 to 70 years and allocation of funds for cleaning of Musi river on the lines of Namami Gange programme.
