Residents of the city who hail from the Rayalaseema and Andhra regions are in nothing short of a dilemma. With the Centre’s announcement on a separate Telangana State imminent, many of them believe the future is uncertain.
The swift political developments have thrown up questions on several issues.
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“The Centre hasn’t specified where they will bring money from to build the new [Seemandhra] capital and how the revenue from Hyderabad is to be shared by the two States,” said Jagarlamudi Sridhar, a cashier with a noted real estate company.
He feels that a separate State would jeopardise whatever little progress his lower middle-class family had made in the city in the past 15 years.
“I had purchased a plot near Bhongir on the outskirts. If I want to sell my plot now I would naturally get a low price. Costs would go up in the proposed new capital [in Seemandhra] because everyone would invest there and hence I cannot buy a similar plot,” he says.
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Hyderabad to lose?
Moreover, 10 years is too long a period to build a new capital. Sridhar and people like him are worried that job opportunities would now slowly dwindle in Hyderabad as industrialists from the Seemandhra region would prefer to make new investments in the purported new capital.
“That makes living here for the next decade difficult, but I cannot return to my village either,” says Suresh, an employee at a private firm. Varaprasad, another private employee, is apprehensive that issues like water sharing and power would cause spell trouble for Seemandhra.
Water sharing
“When the Congress party was in power both at the Centre and in Karnataka, it couldn’t convince the latter not to increase height of the Almatti dam. What if Telangana State doesn’t release water to other regions by building dams in its area,” he questions.
“The transitional period during the formation of the new State and the new leadership will perform a critical role in providing confidence to the people living here,” says a senior official.