Chief Minister Pushes for Environmental Clearances and Electric Buses
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has urged the Union government to grant environmental clearances for several pending projects in Telangana. He also requested approval to convert all diesel buses in Hyderabad into electric vehicles to promote cleaner transportation.
During a meeting with Union Minister for Heavy Industries, H.D. Kumaraswamy, the CM highlighted the state’s proposals under the PM E-Drive scheme. He explained that the state government had requested buses to be allocated using the GCC (Gross Cost Contract) method. Reddy also discussed the possibility of retrofitting existing diesel buses with electric kits to transform them into electric buses. Additionally, he appealed to the Union government to allocate 2,800 electric buses to Hyderabad under both the retro-fitment model and the GCC method.
In a separate meeting with Union Minister of Forest and Environment, Bhupender Yadav, the Chief Minister sought clearances for various development projects in Telangana. He pointed out that 161 projects remain stalled due to delays in receiving approvals from the Forest and Environment Ministry. Furthermore, he urged the Union Minister to grant clearances for 38 projects that fall under the Wildlife Protection Acts.
The CM explained that many of these pending projects are located in remote areas, some of which face challenges due to Left-Wing Extremism. He highlighted that delays in obtaining clearances have hindered essential works, including the construction of towers near national highways, agency areas, and roads connecting neighboring states under the PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana) scheme.
Revanth Reddy also brought up the issue of pending permissions for the Gouravelli irrigation project. He requested immediate approval to proceed with the construction. In response, Bhupender Yadav assured the Chief Minister of a positive review of the requests.
Earlier in the day, the CM met with Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Steel, Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma, at his office in New Delhi. During their discussion, the two leaders addressed several state-related matters of importance.
