Telangana policies should be replicated across India for speedy development: Rao

HYDERABAD: KT Rama Rao, Minister of Information Technology (IT) and Industries, Government of Telangana, believed that the initiatives and policies being implemented in Telangana should be replicated across the country in order to accelerate India’s development. Rao stated this while giving the keynote address at Harvard India Conference 2022, which took place virtually on Sunday, February 20. The event focused on the theme “Turbocharging India @ 2030″. During the one-hour session, Rao opined that by 2030, India will be leading practically every category in the world. “I am convinced that ‘Turbocharging Telangana’ has provided clues for ‘Turbocharging India @ 2030.”

Rao added that growth should be dispersed equally throughout society and that opportunities should be available to everybody. “Any one-sided policy emphasis, in my opinion, will have bad consequences. India’s greatest asset is its diversity. The same variety necessitates the broadening of policy frameworks that go beyond a restricted emphasis,” stated Rao. 

The Government of Telangana’s effective policy design and implementation, equal focus on rural and urban development, and vision towards the 3 Is – Infrastructure development, Inclusive growth, and Innovation – have helped the country’s youngest state to achieve remarkable progress in just seven years, Rao added.  

“Telangana ranked third in the country in terms of percentage increase in Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at current prices between 2014-15 and 2020-21,” he informed. According to the NITI Aayog report, Telangana’s Gross State Domestic Product was Rs 9.80 lakh crore, up 94 per cent from its 2014-15 value. 

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, Telangana’s Per Capita Income (PCI) of Rs 2.37 lakh at current prices is the third highest in the country, despite the COVID-induced economic downturn in 2020-21. He claimed that the state’s concentration on every sector, from agriculture to IT, electricity generation to industry, health infrastructure to quality education, had resulted in extraordinary success. Since the launch of its revolutionary TS-iPASS industrial policy, Telangana has attracted over Rs 2.2 lakh crore in investments. 

TS-iPASS is a certification service to establish industries, manufacturing, and services, in the state of Telangana. “Around 16 lakh people were hired as a result of these investments,” Rao remarked. Tata Sikorsky Aerospace Systems, a joint venture between the Tata Group and Sikorsky, manufactures cabins for the US President’s ‘Marine One’ helicopters in Hyderabad. Moreover, Hyderabad manufactures one-third of the world’s vaccines. “I am quite proud to claim that Hyderabad is the world’s vaccination capital,” Rao added.