Telangana now sees Congress playing politics over policies too

The Congress government is now either renaming schemes and policies, or introducing new ones. The objective, though officials claim is to render more services, is clearly to remove everything that has the BRS imprint, especially the IT policy.

Hyderabad: It was not long ago that Tamil Nadu was impressed with Telangana’s IT policy and Maharashtra builders hailed Telangana’s building permission system. Be it Industries, IT, building permissions or any of the previous government’s initiatives, Telangana’s policies were those that won accolades from different States with many even wanting to replicate them for delivering effective services to their people.

In sharp contrast to this, the Congress government is now either renaming schemes and policies, or introducing new ones. The objective, though officials claim is to render more services, is clearly to remove everything that has the BRS imprint, especially the IT policy.

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In July 2023, Tamil Nadu IT Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan had visited the State on a three-day tour to learn about the policies and initiatives, which would benefit people of the State. He visited Telangana’s innovation ecosystem, which includes T-Works, T-Hub, WE Hub, T-Fiber office and also met with stakeholders in the IT sector at Tech Mahindra campus.

Complimenting the Telangana government for the rapid growth achieved in the IT sector in the last nine years, Thiaga Rajan had said the Tamil Nadu government would adopt the best practices of Telangana.

“Tamil Nadu was supposed to be on par with Hyderabad and Bengaluru but the desired growth was not achieved in the IT sector because of the past government,” Thiaga Rajan had said.

Sharing the details of IT / ITeS exports in the last 10 years, BharathMBNR, a X user said: “44 percent of the total 2.9 lakh IT jobs created in India during the 2022-23 financial year from Hyderabad (1.27 lakh). State with four percent population created 44 percent of jobs. Again, why do you need a new IT Policy?”

While this was about Telangana’s IT policy, builders from Maharashtra were impressed with the fast pace at which building permissions were being issued in Telangana. In September last, a delegation of 250 representatives from Maharashtra CREDAI and other organizations had arrived in the city to study the real estate sector progress in Telangana. Maharashtra CREDAI president Pramod Khairnar and Vice president Sunil Kothwal were impressed with the Telangana government initiatives in making things easy for households and builders in getting permissions.

Oblivious to these recognitions, or choosing to ignore them, the Congress government is now rechristening Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self Certification System (TS-bPASS) as BuildNow (Unified Online Building and Layout Approval System). It would be formally launched by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on February 1, 2025.

A new life sciences policy is also on the anvil, despite the existing one being what helped Telangana become one of the topmost destinations in India for investments in the sector.