Within 24 hours of assuming power in Telangana on Thursday, new chief minister of Telangana A Revanth Reddy has started showing his mark on the administration.
The first step to attract the attention of the people is to break the iron barricades of Pragathi Bhavan, which he renamed as Jyothiba Phule Praja Bhavan, to create an impression that it is no more a “gadi” (fortress) and is accessible to the people.
In the last nine years of its construction, common people had no access to it and were not aware how it looked like. From Friday, they have been given complete access, at least for a few hours a day.
Revanth Reddy also restored the concept of “Praja Darbar” which was prevalent during the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy regime, wherein he used to meet the common people, interact with them and take representation from them, thereby leading to the talk that he is a people’s man and not a monarch.
Thirdly, nobody expected that Revanth Reddy would first focus on electricity sector, on which he had done a lot of groundwork.
Having led several agitations in the past before Vidyut Soudha and challenging the earlier Bharat Rashtra Samithi government on round-the-clock power supply to agriculture, he is aware that something is fishy with the sector and there has been an attempt to sabotage power supply position.
So, the first official meeting he has called on Friday is on electricity sector.
He not only called all the senior officials and engineers of the department, but also summoned those who had resigned from the post within hours of KCR losing the power to know the factual position of power supply and demand.
Apparently, Revanth wants to cut down unnecessary power purchases and save the public money and wants judicious consumption of power to ensure that the agriculture sector receives good current.
Simultaneously, the chief minister is also focussing on curtailing unnecessary expenditure on fancy schemes so that there would be frugality in public expenditure.
So, going by the first steps, Revanth Reddy is going in right direction. How long he would sustain this tempo remains to be seen.
