Pre-Budget All Party Meet: YSR Congress Seeks Socio-Economic Census of BCs

New Delhi: Stressing on the need for cast-based economic census of Backward Classes (BC), YSR Congress leader V Vijayasai Reddy at an all-party meet convened by the government on Monday hope the Centre will look into the enumeration request of BCs in the upcoming ‘decennial census’. He also brought the government’s attention to the gradual drop in the number of sittings in both Houses of Parliament over a few decades. 

Vijayasai Reddy said the Backward Class community forms 50 percent of the total population, so it is necessary to know their economic status to formulate scientific policies for their welfare. 

The YSR Congress MP also raised a host of issues including the women quota bill in Parliament. He urged the government to take up the long standing demand for providing a ‘33 percent reservation’ for women in the Union and State legislatures. 

Raising the MSP issue, Reddy said the Farm Bills were repealed more than a year ago, however, the farmers are still waiting for the legal guarantee for MSP for all the crops. 

Highlighting the recent cyber attack on AIIMS, he emphasised on the protection mechanism against these attacks which exposes the vulnerabilities in our cybersecurity infrastructure. He also demanded a discussion on Blue Economy as India’s vast coastline is contributing rs 1.5 trillion to the GDP. 

In the all-party meet on Monday, Vijayasai Reddy put forth the pending issues of Andhra Pradesh. 

The YSR Congress parliamentarian said the Centre must honour the promise made to Andhra Pradesh on giving Special Category Status (SCS) to the state. He asserted that the Central government has not fulfilled the assurances given to the state during State bifurcation. He said the State government cannot set up 12 new government medical colleges in the state without financial assistance from the Centre. 

All party-meeting, a day ahead of the commencement of the #BudgetSession of Parliament, underway in Delhi. pic.twitter.com/RkhPqdlZQz

— ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2023

Reddy urged the Centre to clear the pending issues of Polavaram Irrigation Project in a timely manner. He listed out the pending issues : 

Investment clearance for Revised Cost Estimate II (Rs. 55,549 crores); Funding for drinking water components (Rs. 4,068 crores); Removal of component-wise restrictions (Rs. 2,937 crores); and Processing of Land Acquisition/Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LA/R&R) bills under Direct Benefit Transfer.

Also Read: Parliament’s Budget Session 2023: BBC Docu, China, Hindenburg Report on Opposition Agenda