A sigh of relief for Telangana

Hyderabad: The new set of guidelines mainly partial relaxation announced by the Centre to resume operations in some key sectors mainly the revenue generating and labour-intensive areas like farming, industrial, manufacturing and construction sectors from April 20, are set to give a temporary relief to crisis-hit Telangana.

Taking cue from the relaxation norms announced by the Union government on Wednesday, the Telangana government has taken up an exercise to bring all the mainstream sectors on to the track from the third week of April. The guidelines permit all agricultural and horticultural activities, including farming operations, activities in agencies engaged in procurement of agriculture products, mandis operated by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee, shops dealing with agriculture machinery will remain fully functional during this time.

Officials said that the new set of norms allowed the entire farming sector to resume operations without any restrictions. The main condition however would be that social distancing should be maintained and other precautionary measures should be followed by the workers.

"The Centre would be closely monitoring the implementation of guidelines and if found to be violated, will withdraw the relaxations," they said. The relaxation of guidelines will help in movement of harvested crops, including mangoes and other horticulture products, will be transported to markets freely to local and other states, the officials said.

The major advantage for Telangana is the Centre has allowed the construction of all roads, irrigation projects, buildings and all kinds of industrial projects, including MSMEs, in rural areas, outside the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities and all kinds of projects in the industrial estates to resume functioning after April 20. The guidelines have stated that work can be taken up at construction projects where workers are available on site. No workers should be brought from outside. These works can begin in municipalities or municipal corporation limits.

State Roads and Buildings Minister V Prashant Reddy and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao held a review meeting with stakeholders and discussed challenges to be faced in resuming the works. The R& B minister instructed the authorities to provide employment to all needy by taking up road development works across the state.

The authorities will hold a meeting with manufacturing units as the industries operating in rural areas and outside the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities and manufacturing and other industrial establishments with access control in the Special Economic Zones and Export Oriented Units, industrial estates and industrial townships are allowed to function as per the new set of guidelines.

The Commercial Taxes department officials also engaged in talks with online supply companies, restaurants and food supply chains to restart door delivery services. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao instructed Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to make all necessary arrangements to resume operations by every sector, which is labour-intensive and revenue-generating, from April 20 onwards.

The government is expecting services provided by self-employed persons like electrician, IT repairs, plumbers, motor mechanics and carpenters who are allowed to operate in all such areas which are not demarcated as Containment Zones will help to address the unemployment crisis faced during the lockdown period.