Telangana continues to get raw deal
Hyderabad: More than seven years after the formation of Telangana on June 2 of 2014, the State continues to suffer from bifurcation blues with the Centre failing to fulfill its promises. Instead of hand-holding the young State and support its progress, the BJP government at the Centre chose to turn a blind eye to promises […]
Hyderabad: More than seven years after the formation of Telangana on June 2 of 2014, the State continues to suffer from bifurcation blues with the Centre failing to fulfill its promises.
Instead of hand-holding the young State and support its progress, the BJP government at the Centre chose to turn a blind eye to promises made in the AP State Reorganisation Act, and sought to blame Telangana for the delay in implementing the promises.
Since State formation, the union Government has presented eight budgets and Telangana was repeatedly denied any project promised under the Act- ranging from the railway coach factory at Kazipet to the steel plant at Bayyaram, tribal and mining universities to national project status for an irrigation project and also increase in Assembly seats from 119 to 153. The Centre did not even fulfill the promise of releasing pending funds amounting to Rs 900 crore under Backward Region Grant Funds (BRGF) and failed to bifurcate the institutions mentioned under Schedule 9 and 10 of the Act.
Soon after taking charge as the first Chief Minister of Telangana, K Chandrashekhar Rao rushed to Delhi with the list of assurances under AP Reorganisation Act as well as the State’s wishlist seeking the Centre’s support. There were only empty promises, but no concrete action. Besides the Chief Minister, his entire Cabinet including the then Irrigation Minister and the current Finance Minister T Harish Rao, Industries Minister KT Rama Rao and several others as well as the TRS MPs repeatedly took up the pending promises at every possible forum. But the Centre maintained a stoic silence even as the State BJP leaders started blaming the Telangana government for the happenings.
The sanction of national project status to one of the irrigation projects in Telangana was meant to give a major fillip to the State’s growth. As national project status was sanctioned to Polavaram in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh under the Act, Telangana sought national project status to either Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) or Palamuru Rangareddy LIS. Despite repeated pleas from the State, the Centre vehemently rejected them in August 2018, when the then union Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari made it clear that the Centre will not sanction national status to any new irrigation project. But soon after, the Centre granted the coveted status which ensures complete funding from the Centre to Upper Bhadra project in Karnataka and Ken Betwa Link Project in Madhya Pradesh which are ruled by the BJP, clearly a case of discrimination against non-BJP States.
Discrimination
On its part, the State government allocated 60 acres land for establishment of the railway coach factory at Kazipet and released Rs 40 crore. But in March 2016, the then union Railway Minister for State Manoj Singh declared that there was no further scope to set up any coach factory in Telangana. However, the Centre readily consented to set up one at Latur in Maharashtra which was proposed in 2018, four years after a coach factory was proposed in Telangana. One must not miss the fact that the BJP was in power in Maharashtra when the new factory was announced just ahead of the State Assembly elections.
The steel factory at Bayyaram was another major assurance that was not sanctioned to the State. The proposal for establishing the steel plant was initially made in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and it was said that about 11 per cent of the nation’s iron ore was available in the surroundings of Bayyaram. When the Centre doubted the quality of iron ore available at Bayyaram, the State government proposed transporting it from Chhattisgarh and even allocated Rs 2 crore in February 2018 for conducting a railway survey, but in vain.
Similarly, the State was promised a tribal university and a mining university under the Act. The State government also sanctioned about 300 acres land for the tribal university at Jakaram in Mulugu district and urged to utilise Youth Training Centre (YTC) for immediate launch of operations. The union Government, however, is yet to respond. The Centre also promised Rs 50 crore each for nine erstwhile districts totalling to Rs 450 crore under BRGF every fiscal. It is yet to clear pending amount of Rs 900 crore pertaining to two years.
The Centre also failed to resolve the inter-State river water disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the last seven years. While Telangana has been seeking sharing of river water on 50:50 basis in Krishna River between the two States despite having 60 per cent of the river under its jurisdiction, the Centre is yet to respond on this issue too. Currently, Telangana is getting only 299 TMC of total 811 TMC and thus, denied of its rightful share of about 100 TMC per annum.
The million dollar question is whether the BJP government at least now shed its discrimination against Telangana and make budgetary allocations in the upcoming union budget?
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