TRS sees anti-Telangana conspiracy behind World Bank report

Hyderabad: Telangana's ruling TRS on Tuesday alleged that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu influenced a World Bank report, which ranked Telangana 13th in the ease of doing business while placing his state at number two.

A day after the report was made public, leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) raised questions on its authenticity and said that they see a conspiracy in it to project the newly-created state as a backward state to stop the flow of investments in the state.

The World Bank's "Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms" report released on Monday ranked Andhra Pradesh second in the country, after Gujarat with a score of 70.12 percent. Telangana with a 42.45 percent score ranked 13th.

"We have our doubts on the report. Most of the states ranked high in the list are those ruled by the NDA," said party MP B. Narsaiah Goud. The report has ranked Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh third, fourth and fifth respectively. Rajasthan is at sixth place, followed by Odisha and Maharashtra.

The timing of the report has also angered the TRS as Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is currently on a 10-day visit to China with a delegation to invite investments. He has been telling the investors that state's new industrial policy is only one of its kind in the world. Narsaiah Goud said there was no transparency in the report as the parameters on which it was based were also not clear.

He said if the parameters of ease of doing business, availability of land, corruption-free administration, availability of electricity and human resources and multilingual environment were taken into account, Telangana fares much better than Andhra Pradesh.

He pointed out that global information technology giants have set up facilities in Hyderabad as the city is seen as the most conducive and safest place to do business. Another TRS leader said Chandrababu Naidu "managed" the report as many a times he boasted himself as the CEO of World Bank.

The leaders said the report was also surprising as Telangana's new industrial policy had won praised from across the world for giving a right to clearance to the investors. State Information Technology Minister K. Tarakarama Rao said the government would let its work speak. "Lot of folks wondering about ease of doing business ranking. Not sure about methodology but we will let our work speak & not fret over this," tweeted the minister, who is the son of the chief minister.