Telangana witnessing Golden Era: Governor

​Hyderabad: Telangana is witnessing Golden Era in Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s dispensation which accorded utmost priority to people’s welfare by implementing schemes at a whopping Rs 40,000 crore per year, Governor ESL Narasimhan said on Saturday.

Delivering address at the 70th Republic Day celebrations at Parade Grounds, the Governor said no other state in the country and even the Centre has allocated such huge funds for people’s welfare as Telangana did. Keeping the promises made and the assurances given to people during the recent elections, the government is also reducing the age limit for old-age pension to 57 years. Similarly, the pension amount will be doubled, the Governor said.

While giving a strong leadership on one side, KCR also helped the state to make rapid strides in development to achieve all-round success, he said. Telangana state, which emerged as the 29th state in the country has become a success story. It is playing an active and pivotal role in nation-building. The past four-and-a- half years have provided a brilliant and wonderful start to the road to progress. The first government formed under the leadership of KCR has taken the reconstruction process in all the sectors in a big and innovative way.

Announcing that Rs 1,17,000 crore being allocated for the irrigation sector in the future, Narasimhan said that the government is making all efforts to get the fruits of “Pride of Telangana- Kaleswaram project” reach all from this monsoon itself.

In Godavari and Krishna river basin, the state has the allocation of 1,300 tmc feet of water and this share will be utilised by completing all the proposed projects at a cost of Rs 2.25 lakh crore aiming to create irrigation facility to 1.25 crore acres of land. The government already obtained all the permissions, NOCs from the Centre, Forest department, Environment ministry, several other organisations and agencies concerned for the projects, he said.

Listing out all the schemes introduced to strengthen rural economy and revival of the traditional occupations, including sheep farming and other programmes, Narasimhan said the Rythu Bandhu scheme launched by the Telangana government has not only found its place in the national agenda but also won appreciation from none other than the United Nations itself. Many other state governments also adopted the scheme. “It is a moment of pride for all of us that Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bheema schemes have become role models to others.”

In the energy sector, the installed power generation capacity has been increased to 16,503 MW from 7,778 MW by taking up new thermal project construction. Telangana has also become the first progressive state in terms of per capita power consumption, he said and commended the KCR government for strengthening the health sector.

The NITI Aayog has declared Telangana state is one among the three states, which are maintaining high standards in public health in the country. It also mentioned about this in its Sustainable Development Goal Index 2018 recently.

Referring to the growth, the Governor said that state has achieved a stable development index, which no other state could do. After the formation of Telangana, in the first four years, it maintained an average growth rate of 17.17 per cent per year. In this financial year till November, it registered a growth rate of 29.93 per cent and stood first in the country. This growth rate was possible due to stringent fiscal measures of the government and measures initiated to eradicate corruption, he said. As part of development of road network, Telangana succeeded in increasing the density of national highways above the average of 2.5 per cent.

Currently, the state has 5,667 km of national highway as against 2,527 km five years ago. KCR government also decided to lay 340 km length of Regional Ring Road (RRR) around Hyderabad outside the ORR on par with international standards in tune with the fast-developing Hyderabad city and its needs. The government has also taken a firm decision to lay BT (black top) roads in all the 12,751 villages soon.

Earlier, the Governor inspected the guard of honour at Parade Grounds. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Legislative Council chairman K Swamy Goud, MPs and MLAs were also present.