Telangana Finance Min Harish Rao gets additional charge of health portfolio
Telangana's Finance Minister T Harish Rao will oversee the Health portfolio in addition to his current charge, it was announced on Tuesday, November 9. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has entrusted to Harish Rao the Medical, Health & Family Welfare portfolio, which he had been holding since May when Eatala Rajender was dropped from the Cabinet. On the advice of the Chief Minister, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan approved the transfer of the portfolio to Harish Rao.
Rajender was divested of the health portfolio on May 1, a day before he was dropped from the Cabinet following allegation of land grabbing. While the Chief Minister was holding the health portfolio, Harish Rao, who is also his nephew, had been attending key meetings on COVID-19, vaccination and other issues related to the Health Department.
Rajender, who had joined the BJP after resigning from the TRS, won the October 30 bye-election in Huzurabad constituency. Harish Rao was entrusted with the key portfolio a week after the result of the by-election. Interestingly, it was Harish Rao who led the ruling party's campaign against Rajender.
Telangana on Tuesday, November 9, reported 173 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 6,72,823, while one more fatality took the toll to 3,968. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 61, followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (13) and Karimnagar and Ranga Reddy (12 each), a state government bulletin said, providing details as of 5.30 pm on Tuesday. It said 168 people recovered from the infectious disease, taking the cumulative number to 6.65 lakh.
The number of active cases stood at 3,754, the bulletin said. It said 40,797 samples were tested today, taking the total number of specimens examined so far to 2.78 crore. The samples tested per million population was 7.48 lakh. The Case Fatality Rate in Telangana was 0.58%, while the recovery rate was 98.85%, the bulletin said.
With IANS and PTI inputs