The 71st Independence Day was celebrated with patriotic fervour in the city on Tuesday by all sections of the society, including public and private sector organisations, educational institutions, people’s organisations and government departments.
At Bus Bhavan, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) Chairman Somarapu Satyanarayana said each of the 52,000-strong workforce, 3,000 supervisors and 357 managers needed to work in tandem to bring the financially-beleaguered organisation firmly on the road to profits.
Speaking after hoisting the tricolour, he said TSRTC was losing ₹ 400 crore a year with its ‘Palle Velugu’ buses (rural services) and another ₹ 400 crore in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation operations. The silver lining, however, was that 32 of the total 96 depots were in profits now, up from only five in the past. Managing Director G.V. Ramana Rao and others attended.
Chairman and Managing Director of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Ltd D. Prabhakr Rao, after unfurling the national flag at Vidyut Soudha, said power generation projects with a capacity of 15,149 MW, including 5,880 MW by TS-Genco with an investment of ₹ 36,000 crore, were under various stages of execution to meet the growing demand, particularly from lift irrigation projects by about 8,500 MW.
At Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Director of the institution D.R. Doley Barman, unfurled the tri-colour and gave the Rashtriya Salute. Speaking on the occasion, she stressed the need for eradicating the evils of socio-economic challenges such as poverty and corruption ailing our civil society and also fighting internal security threats being faced by the country.
At Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), its CMD Debashis Das hoisted the national flag and inspected an impressive guard of honour presented by the Central Industrial Security Force personnel. He recalled several challenging tasks taken up and successfully completed by the employees and cited as examples the ‘Swayam Prabha’ programme of the Ministry of Human Resources Development and production ‘Electronics Fuze’ for the Ministry of Defence.
Managing Director of Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) N.V.S. Reddy said they would be opening two stretches of 30 km length from Miyapur to Ameerpet (13 km) of Corridor-I and Ameerpet to Nagole (17 km) of Corridor-III for commercial operations by November-end.
President of the Federation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FTAPCCI) Gowra Srinivas said unity in diversity was the strength of India and that even while going through testing times the country could come out with flying colours and show the world its democratic strength.
At English and Foreign Languages University, Vice Chancellor, E. Suresh Kumar hoisted the tri-color and declared that the university intends to introduce the concept of “University Social Responsibility” (USR) along the lines of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). As a part of this, the university would soon launch free online courses for acquiring functional proficiency in English, Sanskrit, Hindi, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Turkish and others.
At Osmania University, Vice-Chancellor Prof. S. Ramachandram unfurled the national flag at the historic OU Arts College building. At Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University, Vice-Chancellor V. Praveen Rao announced that recruitment for 242 teaching posts would be completed by October 2017. The notification for these posts would be issued later this week.
President of Telangana Swatantra Senani Samiti B. Babu Rao Varma hoisted the national flag at the Ashoka Pillar in Kothi. Several freedom fighters and TRS MP K. Keshava Rao attended the event.
