KTR on rampage against Centre
Hyderabad: IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao came out with his guns blazing against the Union government on Wednesday for completely ignoring Telangana, and listed out several instances where important and rightfully-deserved projects were denied to the State. “Be it the Turmeric Board, Hyderabad-Bengaluru Defence Corridor, vaccine lab for Hyderabad that has emerged as vaccine capital of the world or the Railway Coach factory in Kazipet, the Union government has only displayed discrimination towards Telangana,” he said.
The Union government, the Minister said, appeared to be more focused in announcing projects or extending financial assistance to States that are now poll-bound.
Citing the example of Turmeric Board, he said the State government had been appealing for its establishment in Nizamabad for several years now. “An MP even went to the extent of assuring the setting up of the Board and signed on a bond paper stating that he would resign in case he fails to succeed. In the end, Tamil Nadu is now being assured of the turmeric board as an election promise,” Rama Rao said.
Stating that the Telangana government launched the Strategic Nala Development Programme (SNDP) to construct storm water drains, repair damaged ones and increase capacity of many to avoid flooding in urban areas, particularly in Hyderabad, he said the State government had appealed to the Union Minister of Urban Affairs HS Puri to sanction Rs. 832 crore for the project but it was turned down. “The Union Minister said it was not feasible to sanction funds for any of the existing schemes,” he said.
Pointing out that Hyderabad had emerged as the vaccine capital of the world, he said diplomats from 70 countries had recently visited the Genome Valley that speaks volumes of the importance they attach to the city. “When the State government urged the Centre to set up a vaccine testing laboratory in the city in view of the huge production of vaccines here, the BJP government allocated the lab to Himachal Pradesh without any logic,” he said.
Rama Rao said that similarly, there are many defence units in and around Hyderabad and going by the existing infrastructure here, a proposal was made to allot the defence industrial production corridor between Hyderabad and Bengaluru. “But again, the corridor was set up in Bundelkhand which does not have a single defence related manufacturing unit,” he said.
There are several such instances, the Minister said, and pointed out that Telangana had allocated 150 acre of precious Endowment land for setting up coach factory in Kazipet. “This is a long pending demand and even assured in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act. But again, surprisingly, a coach factory was sanctioned for Marathwada for which a proposal was made in 2018,” he said, adding that the Centre’s discrimination towards Telangana continues unabated even as the State contributes five per cent of the GDP.
Listing out other proposals of the State, he said industrial corridors, mega textile park and Hyderabad Pharma City are some of the other projects that were completely ignored by the Centre.
The State government, he said, submitted a Detailed Project Report on Metro phase II for Hyderabad and has been pursuing for the past few years but not a single rupee has been sanctioned. “On the contrary, Rs. 63,000 crore was approved for Chennai Metro since Tamil Nadu is facing elections shorty,” he said.
“What is more, Hyderabad Metro is the world largest PPP Metro and the Centre’s contribution through VGF was Rs.1,450 crore. Of these, Rs.1,200 crore has been released and the balance Rs.250 crore has been due for long,” he said, and asked: “Is this Sab ka saath- sab ka Vikas?”
The Minister made a strong appeal to the Centre to extend support to Telangana as it was a progressive State and was achieving a lot of development in very short span of time.
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