India's 29th state Telangana completes one year

Hyderabad, Jun 2: The youngest Indian state of Telangana, carved out of Andhra Pradesh, today completed one year of its existence after nearly a five-decade struggle for a separate statehood.

The state had elected Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao, who played a pivotal role in leading the struggle, as its Chief Minister in last year's assembly elections.

On June 2, 2014, the 29th state of India was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, triggering massive protest from Seemandhra region. In a good omen for Telangana's future, the state is identified as being revenue surplus with the crown jewel of Hyderabad going to the state in bifurcation of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Launch of a number of welfare and development programmes by the TRS government marked its one-year rule, though opposition parties attack the government on various counts like alleged agrarian distress and encouraging defections despite having majority in assembly.

Rao, who vowed to work for "reconstruction" of Telangana, inaugurated a number of programmes and schemes in various spheres including providing drinking water supplies, laying of roads, promoting greenery, women's safety and industrial policy.

The Telangana Drinking Water Supply Project envisages coverage of about three-crore population in the state with an outlay of Rs 38.5 crores.

The state government has taken up a scheme of restoring minor irrigation sources (a total of 46,531) under the 'Mission Kakatiya' initiative. The mission aims at restoring water bodies like tanks community participation for ensuring water security.

The state government faced flak several months ago for inadequate power supply, especially to the farm sector, but the government now asserts that the state is now on course to become power sufficient.

"Not just achieving self-sufficiency in power sector, but the state government has already gathered investments of Rs 91,000 crore towards making Telangana a power surplus state in India that can supply power to others," Rao said in his speech during state-formation day celebrations today.

The government earmarked an amount of Rs 27,000 crore in the budget for welfare measures. The government provides social security pensions to senior citizens, widows, weavers, persons with disabilities.

Towards achieving women's safety, the government introduced 'SHE Teams' in Hyderabad to curb eve teasing and harassment.

The personnel of the teams, who are in civil dress, are deployed near colleges and other public places to check the menace. For attracting investments and promoting industrialisation, the state government has unveiled the new industrial policy framework by bringing in a legislation.

Telangana State Industrial Project Approval and Self-Certification System (TS-iPASS) is a "single window without grills" for clearing all investment proposals.

Telangana IT and Panchayat Raj Minister K T Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao, toured the United States and met honchos of top IT firms like Satya Nadella to promote IT in the state.

Establishing a Photonics valley, Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge Centre and launching of free wi-fi are some of the initiatives of the state government for promotion of Information Technology in the state.

PTI