KTR presents Telangana’s success streak that PM Modi refuses to recognise

HYDERABAD: Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Telangana, taking potshots at him, State IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) highlighted the success streak of Telangana.

Even though KTR meant to give it back to Modi, he actually presented the Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) poll plank for the ensuing elections.

KTR said that it was strange that Prime Minister could not even acknowledge the triumph of his own Indian State, Telangana. Telangana’s per capita income growth in India was the highest with Rs 3.17 lakh and Telangana was the first State to supply drinking water to every household, thereby inspiring the Centre to take up ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’, KTR said.

The BRS Working President reminded Prime Minister that Telangana completed the world’s largest lift irrigation project, Kaleshwaram in record time. He said that Telangana became the best rural development model with 100 percent Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages in the country.

Coming to the farming sector, KTR said that Telangana with productive lands, sufficient irrigation, and hard-working farmers became the second-highest paddy producer in India. Enlisting the success stories of Telangana in other sectors, KTR said that the State had created the highest number of IT jobs in the country, and at the same length, achieved an astonishing growth in green cover by 7.7 percent, leaving no sector untouched.

Telangana, after the bifurcation in 2014, received 26 awards for best municipalities in the country, which was the second highest among other states. The State was among the top four contributing States towards the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), KTR said.

By simplifying and uncluttering regulations, Telangana stood at the number three position in the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) category and was also known for its best industrial policy in the country, he added.

He said that the State was the home to India’s largest textile park, the Kakatiya Mega Textile Park (KMTP), and vaccine hub that produced one-third of the global vaccines.

Explaining other development indices, KTR said that the State which endured power cuts and holidays during the combined rule, now had the highest per capita power consumption in India. He added that Telangana was the largest renewable energy producer in the country and also had one of the lowest Debt-GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) ratios among other states in the country.

Describing Hyderabad as one of the most livable cities in the country and the world, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister said that Hyderabad was rated by Mercer as the best Indian city for five years in a row (2015-20). Telangana was also recognised by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in its latest survey as the State with the lowest corruption in India.

“The youngest State Telangana also won many international accolades, Yet the PM of India did not have a single word of appreciation to say. He refuses to acknowledge a performing and contributing state for petty politics,” KTR concluded asking the PM to name a single BJP-ruled State in the country that outperformed Telangana in the past nine years.

Centre Copied TS programmes

Highlighting the programmes which were conceived and implemented by the Telangana government and copied by the BJP, another BRS activist Putta Vishnuvardhan Reddy, in response to KTR’s tweet, enlisted the names of the programmes copied by the BJP by renaming them.

“In his 100 episodes of ‘Mann ki Baat or in his dozen tours to Telangana since 2014, not once has the PM acknowledged that these following schemes in Telangana inspired him to emulate them at the national level,” Vishnuvardhan Reddy pointed out.

He said that the ‘Rythubandhu’ was renamed and implemented as ‘PM Kisan Samman Nidhi’, ‘Mission Bhagiratha’ of Telangana as ‘Har Ghar Jal’, Urban Lung Parks’ as ‘Nagar van’, the State’s flagship TSiPASS as Single Window System and ’Mission Kakatiya’ as ‘Amrit Sarovar’ programme.

Has Modi rubbed Telangana on the wrong and got it back?