Former Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA T Harish Rao launched a scathing attack on the Congress government on Saturday, condemning the two-year stagnation and deterioration witnessed across the state’s medical and health services.
Leading a delegation of BRS leaders, Rao inspected the halted construction activity at the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) hospital in LB Nagar. He warned Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy that a "public revolt" was inevitable if critical healthcare projects weren’t completed on a war footing.
Rao accused the Congress of lacking the foresight that former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) demonstrated in planning robust post-COVID healthcare infrastructure. "If K Chandashekhar Rao had foresight for a hundred years, the Congress party has demonstrated a total lack of it," he declared, recalling how KCR had envisioned four TIMS super-speciality hospitals around Hyderabad, alongside a 2,000-bed expansion of NIMS, to ensure quality care reached the masses.
Harish Rao lamented the two-year halt under Congress rule, noting that land acquisition, tenders, designs, and funding for these projects — all finalised by the BRS — had been ignored. He pointed out that while the BRS had integrated the LB Nagar TIMS site with an existing cellar to build a six-storey structure, the current administration had only managed five floors in two years.
“If BRS was in power, these hospitals would have started serving the public by now. Revanth Reddy is deliberately delaying works out of malice, fearing that KCR’s name and BRS good deeds will be remembered,” he charged.
The delegation also decried the government’s decision to cancel or merge several BRS-sanctioned medical colleges. Rao said that the move undermined the goal of delivering super-speciality services to underprivileged areas.
"KCR planned medical colleges in all 33 districts, increasing MBBS seats from 2,850 to 10,000. We sanctioned the Ranga Reddy district medical college in Maheshwaram via GO, but they scrapped it and merged it with TIMS L.B. Nagar," he explained, adding that this, along with the folding of the Quthbullapur sanction into TIMS Alwal, left these areas without essential planned facilities.
Rao flagged several other governance failures, including the government's refusal to pay the salaries of staff at Basti Dawakhanas for six months, despite Chief Minister Revanth Reddy's promise of monthly disbursal. He claimed the Congress "takes pride in starving these centres."
Other grievances included ₹1,400 crore in pending Aarogyasri bills, which have rendered the health scheme ineffective, the unexplained halt to the "Kanti Velugu" mass eye care programme, and a broader downturn in healthcare access.
The former Minister demanded immediate steps for the completion of Warangal Health City and the Hyderabad TIMS hospitals.
“Don’t play politics with hospitals that save lives. Dates and deadlines change, but work doesn’t progress. We’re warning Revanth Reddy: Complete these on a war footing, or a revolt from the people is inevitable,” he asserted.
Rao was accompanied to the TIMS site by former minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy, local MLA Sudhir Reddy, and other party functionaries.
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