The Congress government in Telangana has shelved the Hyderabad Pharma City project the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime had conceived and instead decided to establish 10 pharma villages across the State, beginning with Vikarabad, Medak and Nalgonda.
“Pharma City [project] is gone,” Minister for Industries and IT D. Sridhar Babu said while replying to queries on the status of the project that the previous government had mooted on around 10,000 acres with plans to scale it up to several more thousand acres.
The Minister, who interacted with the media on the sidelines of BioAsia 2024 here on Tuesday, said that the shift was necessitated on account of the long-term environmental burden of Hyderabad Pharma City, objections of the farming community as well as litigation surrounding the land acquisition.
“We want to see the State progress in totality... people should feel part of the development,” he said, adding each pharma village or cluster would take shape on 1,000-2,000 acres and comprise manufacturing facilities, research and development centres, among others.
On what the government intended to do with the land acquired for the Hyderabad Pharma City project, Mr. Babu said, “We will come up with a democratic solution... land will be used for productive uses.”
To a query related to land availability for the proposed pharma villages, he said that to a certain extent land bank was available, including in the three places where Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy earlier in the day announced the first set of clusters.
For the rest of the requirements, the government would explore options depending on the needs of companies coming forward to set up facilities. Their requests would be handled on a first come first served basis and the acquisition would be taken up in a judicious manner to ensure it did not trigger litigation and disappointment among farmers.
MSME policy
The State government would also be launching a new Life Sciences policy that would integrate various aspects, including the deployment of emerging technologies to regulatory aspects. An MSME policy is also on the cards, he added. Asked whether the government would also review the previous regime’s TS-iPASS policy of time-bound clearances or deemed approval for industrial projects, the Minister said while an overhaul was not required but “we will try to refine it... clear some confusion.”
Responding to queries on the Chief Minister’s announcement that the Life Sciences R&D and clean manufacturing hub Genome Valley, near Hyderabad, is to be expanded with an additional 300 acres, Mr. Babu said the land required has been acquired and many companies have evinced interest in setting up facilities. The government is hopeful of attracting projects totalling ₹20,000 to ₹30,000 crore investment over next five years.
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