Telangana surges ahead as AP still fights split blues
It has been four years since Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated into two smaller states — Telangana and residuary AP. With just less than 10 months left for the assembly elections, both the states present a contrasting picture in terms of development as well as political scape.
Starting Saturday, the Telangana government headed by Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister is gearing up for week-long festivities to celebrate the fourth year of formation of the state. The chief minister claims to have achieved remarkable progress on all fronts and bringing the state’s economy to a very comfortable position.
On the other hand, there is very little to celebrate for the people of Andhra Pradesh as they are still nursing the wounds of bifurcation. Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is struggling hard to rebuild the truncated state and is blaming the Centre for not coming to his rescue in reviving the sagging economy. For the fourth consecutive year, Naidu has given a call to the people to observe “Nava Nirmana Deeksha” — taking a pledge to make a fresh beginning to rebuild AP into a prosperous state.
HYDERABAD:
TELANGANA
At the time of bifurcation, Telangana had several advantages — it has a ready-made capital in Hyderabad which contributed to nearly 45% of the total state’s revenues; it had well-developed industrial infrastructure and it has a well-established Information Technology hub, besides having abundant natural resources. “The biggest advantage is that it has a surplus economy thanks to Hyderabad and its surroundings with huge industrial infrastructure developed over last several decades. This has given the leverage to KCR to come up with several development projects and welfare schemes,” says former legislator and political analyst Prof K Nageshwar.
In the last four years, Telangana government has claimed to have achieved a growth rate of 10.4% (fiscal 2017-18) and made progress on various fronts.
The state, which was reeling under power crisis during initial days of formation, is now in surplus position.
The state government is now able to give 24X7 power to agriculture sector free of cost. On the irrigation front, the government has taken up the massive Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project on Godavari river at a cost of over ₹85,000 crore to provide irrigation to one crore acres in northern Telangana, besides completing various pending projects in Krishna river basin.
Other development projects like Mission Kakatiya (of restoration of tanks) and Mission Bhagiratha (of providing piped drinking water supply to every household), besides a series of welfare schemes, including Rythu Bandhu (payment of input cost of ₹8,000 per acre for two crop seasons to farmers every year), 2BHK housing for weaker sections and Kalyan Lakshmi and Shadi Mubarak (payment of ₹1 lakh to newly-wed couples of weaker sections and minorities) are some of the schemes the TRS government is riding on to seek electoral benefits in 2019.
The opposition, however, rubbishes all these claims. “These schemes are for publicity and none has been implemented completely. As far as assistance under Rythu Bandhu scheme, which has been introduced in the election year, is concerned, it is just peanuts compared to the huge debt burden farmers are facing,” Telangana Congress spokesman Dasoju Sravan said.
ANDHRA PRADESH
Andhra Pradesh has been suffering from huge revenue deficit from the day one. With the state losing out high-revenue generating capital Hyderabad to Telangana, it was forced to depend on the Centre to bridge the revenue deficit and for other financial support to build its own capital Amaravati and other major projects such as Polavaram dam on Godavari river.
“A number of promises were made to residuary AP. We had joined the NDA in 2014 only with a hope that the Centre would extend all benefits to the state as promised under the bifurcation act. But we got pittance in the last four years,” the chief minister said during the just-concluded Telugu Desam Party conclave Mahanadu in Vijayawada.
Naidu, who gained the global reputation as the CEO of Andhra Pradesh Inc, for attracting global players such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Wolfenson to the state, is struggling to get loans from the World Bank for the capital construction.
Though the Naidu government also took up several initiatives to develop the state like achieving power surplus position, completion of Pattiseema project linking Godavari with Krishna river, waiver of crop loans and provision of educational loans to students of weaker sections etc, lack of any progress in Amaravati and Polavaram projects remain a big drawback for his government.
“Had the Centre given special category status to AP, the state would have made considerable progress both industrially as well as financially,” Nageshwar said.
And the demand for special category status continues to haunt Naidu in the coming days. With the main opposition party YSR Congress going strongly into the people with the demand, tough days are ahead for Naidu in the coming months.