Hyderabad, April 12: Minister for Handlooms and Textiles P Shankar Rao has said he will resign from the cabinet if the government fails to protect the interests of weavers.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat, the minister said the government had issued necessary orders a few months back to nine government departments to place orders for their cloth requirement with APCO. It also made budgetary allocation to these departments for the purpose.
Except for the department of school education & Rajiv Vidya Mission, no other department placed order with weavers’ societies or APCO. Worse, they were giving orders to other states like Tamil Nadu, he said.
“I am going to write a letter to the chief minister stating that if I cannot protect the interests of poor weavers and societies in the state or utilise the Rs 300 crore earmarked in the budget for clearing the loans under the loan waiver scheme, there is no need for me continue as cabinet minister’’ Rao said.
Speaking at an all-party meeting on the uniforms for Rajiv Vidya Mission, TDP, BJP CPI and CPM leaders wanted supply of cloth material ordered by the RVM by the end of June.
The RVM placed an order for 52,66,837 uniforms worth Rs 105.34 crore.
–Agencies