Centre’s apathy fails to hinder Telangana’s progress
Telangana has turned around in double quick time and has become a force to reckon with in agriculture, IT, industry, pharma, energy and several other sectors
Hyderabad: The utter disregard of the BJP government at the Centre for a progressive State like Telangana and its unwillingness to recognize the tremendous growth potential the State offers has neither dampened the spirit of the TRS government nor has it come anywhere close to applying the brakes on development programmes and welfare schemes in the State.
If anything, the State administration only seems more determined to carry on with its good work over the past seven years as was evident from the Governor’s address to a joint session of the State Legislature on Monday coupled with Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s assertion earlier that the State budget for 2021-22 would be promising with a higher annual outlay. Official indications are that the outlay could be between Rs 1.85 lakh crore to Rs 2.05 lakh crore, a quantum jump if it is on the upper band.
Understandably, the Rs 1.82 lakh outlay for 2020-21 was revised to Rs 1.46 lakh crore in the pandemic year, which given the fact that the State had to endure an overall negative impact of Rs one lakh crore including a Rs 50,000 crore revenue loss, only speaks volumes of the State government’s deft handling of the economic situation even in the face of the Centre’s complete indifference.
Enough has been spoken and written about how the Centre has been consistently robbing Telangana of its rightful share in tax devolution, denying it other payments and grants recommended by Niti Aayog and not releasing even the arrears on various counts. But what is disappointing and at times even humiliating is that the BJP government is not willing to even consider some of Telangana’s rightful demands that are explicitly covered under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014.
The list of unfulfilled promises is long. Kazipet coach factory, Bayyaram steel plant, Tribal University, ITIR, to name just a few, shows how the Centre, in its myopic view of Telangana, deprived the State of development activities that could have further accelerated its already sharp-paced growth. The latest instance of the Centre dealing a blow to Telangana has been the rejection of the long-standing proposal of the TRS to set up a Turmeric Board in the State, more specifically in Nizamabad district. Unwittingly, the BJP government, in the process, has also landed a tight slap on the face of its own MP from Nizamabad, Dharmapuri Aravind.
Aravind, in the heat of electioneering for the Lok Sabha seat in early 2019, had gone to the extent of putting down in black and white, on a bond paper, that he would ensure the establishment of the Turmeric Board in Nizamabad if he was sent to the lower house of Parliament. Needless to say, the MP took the cue from the Centre to claim, post the turmeric heat, that the existence of regional offices of the Spices Board in Telangana State more than served the purpose.
That Telangana has arrived as a frontline State in the country is evident from the numerous national and international awards and recognitions it has been collecting in the seven years of its journey since it came into existence in 2014. Many of its path-breaking policies and development programmes such as Mission Bhagiratha, Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima have either been replicated in toto or given a little tweak and implemented in other States, and by the BJP government too.
And then there are some like the 24×7 free and quality power supply to the farm sector and Aasara, a pension bouquet virtually covering all sections, sheep distribution and release of fishling in water bodies that others have not even thought about so far or implemented!
From a parched, barren land plagued with several social, health and economic issues on account of complete neglect for seven decades, Telangana has turned around in double quick time and has become a force to reckon with in agriculture, IT, industry, pharma, energy and several other sectors. Yet, the BJP government at the Centre fails to acknowledge the growth and recognize the potential. There certainly has to be something more to than meets the eye to explain the Union government’s apathy to a progressive State like Telangana. `
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