Telangana per capita income is higher than Mumbai's: KCR

WARANGAL: Telangana is providing leadership to the country with its astounding progress in multiple sectors, claimed Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao here on Saturday. He inaugurated the Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences, a state-of-the-art facility, featuring a cancer hospital and a medical college at the Mulugu Cross Road near Warangal.

Addressing a gathering of distinguished audiences including medical students, the Chief Minister spoke on a wide range of subjects, from medicine to agriculture and politics. He exhorted the medical professionals to also look beyond their field of expertise and closely observe the developments taking place in the country.

"India is the epitome of peace and tolerance. For ages, it is like a bouquet of myriad flowers and fragrances. Of late, some vested elements have been trying hard to sow the seeds of hatred to divide the society for their selfish political gains. This might seem like an area that is off-limits for you. But everyone in the country, including future medical practitioners like you, should be conscious of what is happening around us. One moment of complacency can set us back by decades. The ebbs and flows of the long Telangana statehood struggle should be a stark reminder for all of us," KCR said.

Reiterating that Telangana had been progressing well and prospering into a wealthy state, he claimed that the per capita income of Telangana was higher than that of Maharashtra which has Mumbai as its capital and also regarded as the financial capital of the country. "Telangana is a No.1 state in the country, not just in the medical sphere but on multiple fronts," he said.

He also took a jibe at his detractors, especially those from the BJP-led NDA, in his inimitable style. "Many leaders from the Centre come here, only to abuse me and belittle Telangana. But, the same people give awards to the state in Delhi," he sarcastically commented.

On the medical front, KCR sounded optimistic of providing medical education in the state to as many as 10,000 students in the near future. "Despite the Centre's refusal to grant new medical colleges, we were able to move forward towards our principal objective of setting up 33 medical colleges, one each in every district. Already, we have 17 of them which provide 6,700 medical seats. Once we accomplish our goal of establishing 33 medical colleges, we will be able to provide medical education to over 10,000 students. And none of you will need to head to Russia, Ukraine or any foreign destinations for medical education," the Chief Minister asserted.

KCR also spoke about his government' resolve to expand across the state the '100 percent health profile project' which is currently being implemented on an experimental basis in Sircilla and Mulugu. Stating that the pilot project had yielded positive results in Mulugu, he said that it would be expanded across all the 119 Assembly constituencies in future to facilitate the complete health profile of a person that can be accessed with a mere click on the computer.

The Telangana Chief Minister also lauded Warangal for its all-round progress and spoke about the ambitious 2,000-bed multi-specialty hospital here which, he said, would be coming up in a 24-storeyed building. He hoped that the state-of-the-art facility, once commissioned, would be able to trigger a reverse trend of Hyderabadis flocking to Warangal in their quest for quality medicare.