Rain wreaks havoc in state
Farmers in North Telangana are complaining that the Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP), North Telangana's major irrigation project, is witnessing a shortage of water. This is despite heavy rains in the last week across Telangana, including its upper catchment areas recording a rainfall of 2-2.5 cm. The project serves the irrigation needs of undivided Nizamabad, Adilabad, Karimnagar and Warangal district including the needs of the farmers. While, farmers hope that the catchment areas get filled up, denizens of Hyderabad are in a bad mood, thanks to the traffic jams and inclement weather. The Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K. Taraka Rama Rao has asked the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to take up road repairing works on a war footing. He has released Rs 5 lakhs for road repair works and has advised the officials to fill the potholes with BT Emulsion and Shellmac cold mix.
Youngsters addicted to high-end drugs
Police in the state have found that over 1000 students, some of them as young as 13, were using high-end drugs, including LSD and MDMA. The drugs were distributed in the form of biscuits. While the drug-school connection is an old story, it was surprising to find how well these groups were organised. The Enforcement Director Akun Sabharwal has shifted his attention from educational institutions to the Telugu film industry. Notices were served to 12 film personalities and the first to appear for questioning was director Puri Jagannath. The Telangana excise department has set up a special investigation team to probe the drug supply racket. It will be a two-member SIT comprising assistant excise superintendent and an excise inspector.
State's green drive reaches Antartica
The Telangana government is busy implementing the third phase of Telangana Ku Haritha Haram. The Chief Minister of Telangana, K Chandrasekhar Rao, inaugurated the project at Karimnagar and promised the people that the town will transform into London. "If London has Thames, Karimnagar has Manair," KCR said. He also wanted to plant enough saplings so that it would look like a dense forest from the air, when he returns to Karimnagar by helicopter after two years. The state government has spent Rs 1,700 crore till now to make the state green. While in 2015-16, 16 crore saplings were planted, in 2016-17, 31 crore saplings were planted. This year, the state government plans planting of 40 crore saplings. The TRS government is far away from achieving the target of planting 230 crore saplings before 2019, of which 120 crore were to be planted outside forest areas, 100 crore in forest areas and 10 crore in areas under GHMC and Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority areas. Telangana's unique programme of planting crores of saplings was taken to Antarctica by 32-year-old Raghunandan Vadla of Hyderabad who planted the Haritha Haram flag at the remote outpost in Antarctica this March. The engineering graduate, along with representatives from 32 countries, was part of an expedition organised by Robert Swan, the first person to walk to both North and South Pole. This seems to have put pressure on the state to make sure that the 'green festival' is taken to its final target. IT minister K.T. Rama Rao appreciated Vadla's efforts and tweeted his gratitude.
