Kancha Gachibowli to Sharada Peetham: Repeated flip-flops expose Congress Govt’s inefficiency

The Congress government in Telangana, led by Revanth Reddy, has faced repeated criticism over policy reversals on major projects and land issues. These U-turns have triggered public anger, judicial scrutiny and political backlash, affecting the State’s administrative credibility

Hyderabad: One step forward, three steps back. This is gradually becoming the hallmark of the Revanth Reddy-led Congress government in Telangana, which over the last two years has repeatedly had mud on its face and been forced to retract from multiple initiatives.

Classic examples of this inexperience and absolute lack of command over the administration are the Kancha Gachibowli land fiasco, the Lagacherla land acquisition controversy, the dilly-dallying over the Pharma City, the aborted relocation of government offices to T-Hub, the flip-flop over the utility of the Kaleshwaram Project and the embarrassing Sharada Peetham land allotment standoff, not to forget the umpteenth mass transfer of IAS officers.

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All this has dented the image of Telangana itself, not just that of the Congress government, which must now be quite used to hitting national headlines for all the wrong reasons, considering the multiple raps from the Supreme Court and even the National Human Rights Commission.

Soon after coming to power, the Revanth Reddy government had declared that the proposed Pharma City to come up in about 12,000 acres was scrapped, with Pharma Village clusters to be set up. The lands acquired by the previous BRS government were to be used for developing the Future City. However, once the issue reached the High Court, the State government had to state before the court that the Pharma City project was not cancelled and that it was very much on. This, at least for some time, triggered apprehensions and uncertainty among pharma majors who were planning to set up shop in the Pharma City.

The Congress government then drew national attention when it announced plans to develop an IT park in 400 acres at Kancha Gachibowli, ignoring the fact that the land there was classified as forest land. Massive destruction of biodiversity followed, with several bulldozers and earthmovers felling nearly 1500 trees overnight. Cutting across sections, students, employees, professionals and environmentalists raised objections, with the Supreme Court taking suo motu notice of the destruction and directing the Congress government to halt the activity. Revanth Reddy’s attempt to brush aside the damage as ‘AI-generated images’ boomeranged.

Then came the Kaleshwaram Project, the world’s largest multi-stage lift irrigation project, a status that the Congress ignored, repeatedly calling it a mammoth waste of money and alleging that irrigation water was not provided to a single acre through the project. However, just like it did in the last two years, the Congress government had to swallow its own criticism and operated the Kaleshwaram pumps this year too to lift water. On Friday, the Nandi pump house motors were operated for lifting River Godavari water to the Gayatri pump house and eventually into the SRSP flood flow canal. This apart, the Chief Minister has announced that the government would initiate measures to repair the Medigadda, Sundilla and Annaram barrages of the project.

This year began with yet another fiasco, when the government was forced to rescind its decision to relocate government offices, including high footfall agencies like sub-registrar offices, to T-Hub as part of what it called a rationalisation exercise. People from different sections came down heavily on the government for the decision, pointing out that the move would defeat the very purpose of one of the world’s largest incubation campuses and innovation hubs, forcing Revanth Reddy to retreat yet again.

Saturday saw the latest instance of the Congress government beating yet another hasty retreat, with the Chief Minister forced to ask officials to cancel the proposed takeover of land from the Sharada Peetham at Kokapet to hand it over to the Water Board. The reversal came after former Minister T Harish Rao rushed to the spot and slammed the government for the faulty move, followed by the Peetham representatives directly meeting the Chief Minister.

These repeated policy reversals across key projects and land decisions have exposed the governance inconsistency of the Congress government, triggering controversy, judicial scrutiny and political backlash, while denting Telangana’s administrative credibility that was carefully built over a decade when the BRS was in power.