Hyderabad: Telangana continued with its surge in the IT sector even in the Covid year (2020-21), recording a phenomenal 13 per cent growth in IT exports from the State. IT exports from Telangana scaled a new high of over Rs 1.45 lakh crore in 2020-21 against Rs 1.28 lakh crore the previous year, IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao said on Thursday.
Releasing the annual reports of the Industries and IT departments here, the Minister, pointing out that IT exports were a mere Rs 57,000 crore at the time of State formation in 2014, said: “Since the formation of Telangana, we have been able to achieve a Compound Average Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.25 per cent, up from Rs 57,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 1.45 lakh crore now.”
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“Telangana once again boasts of phenomenal growth in the IT/ITeS sectors, and it has been consistently witnessing more than double the estimated average national growth rate in IT exports,” he added.
Stating that simultaneously, employment in the IT/ITeS sector had also increased by eight per cent to touch 6,28,615 in 2020-21, Rama Rao said despite the pandemic, Telangana added 46,489 new jobs in the IT/ITeS sector. “The IT employment figure was 3.23 lakh when Telangana came into existence, which means the State has added over three lakh new IT/ITeS jobs over the last seven years. This apart, the increase in direct employment also led to creation of at least 2.5 times more indirect jobs,” he said.
“Friends in the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and industry body Nasscom tell me that the eight per cent growth in IT employment in Telangana for 2020-21 is significantly higher than the national average, which is just about two per cent as per STPI numbers,” the Minister said.
TS contributes 5% to national GDP
It is not merely the IT sector where Telangana has been making rapid strides. Subsequent to the fast-paced progress in various sectors, Telangana’s share in the national GDP also went up by 26 basis points to touch 5 per cent in 2020-21 against 4.74 per cent in 2019-20. Besides, in 2020-21, the State recorded a per capita income of a whopping Rs 2,27,145 compared to the national average of Rs 1,27,768, Rama Rao pointed out.
He said the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Telangana in 2020-21 was Rs 9.78 lakh crore. The growth rate fell by 1.26 per cent at constant prices (2011-12) due to the pandemic but was still significantly better than India’s projected GDP contraction at eight per cent, he said.
The resilience of Telangana’s economy was aided by agriculture and allied sectors, which grew by 20.9 per cent, which virtually dwarfs the three per cent growth in the same segments at the national level, the minister said. The primary sector, he said, contributed 20.6 per cent, secondary 19.1 per cent and the tertiary sector contributed 60.3 per cent to the Gross State Value Added (GSVA) for 2020-21.
The State’s unique single-window industrial policy, TS-iPASS, which has won accolades from various sections, facilitated cumulative investment inflows of over Rs 2.14 lakh crore, creating 15.6 lakh jobs. In 2020-21, TSIIC, the nodal body for industries, developed ten new industrial parks and allotted 810 acre to 453 industries with an expected investment of Rs 6,023 crore and potential employment for 7,623, the Minister said.