Telangana Social Development Report -2017, first such report for any State in the country released by Finance Minister Eatala Rajender here on Friday, gave a realistic picture of glaring rural-urban and social inequalities among all social development indicators.
The report was prepared by the Southern Regional Centre, Council for Social Development and its Director Kalpana Kannabiran presented a statistical profile of social sector in the State based on various rounds of NSSO and census data prior to bifurcation.
Mr. Rajender said there prevailed a perception that political leaders lacked vision and orientation to address shortcomings in the social sector- health, education, employment, sex ratio, social security, urbanisation and plight of poor, efficacy of the public distribution system, and access to credit. But Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao and other TRS leaders were aware of the problems of people as they closely mingled with them during the Telangana movement . The objective of statehood thus was to give a better life for the poor and fulfil their aspirations.
Appreciating the Social Development Report which was brought out on the lines of the India Social Development Report pioneered by CSD president Muchkund Dubey, Mr. Rajender reminded that the intensive household survey carried out by the government across the State on a single day was an effort to understand social and economic status of people. It helped the government formulate various welfare schemes to alleviate distress of people.
The State may have overall higher per capita income but there were severe disparities and inequalities as pointed by the SDR , Mr. Rajender admitted. It would be for the government to address the failings in education, and health and called upon the intellectuals to make suggestions to improve social parameters.
Recent disturbing trends in the IT and industry sector showed that focus should be on strengthening the rural economy. Government therefore was giving priority to agriculture and caste-based vocations to ensure sustainable livelihoods and self-reliance.
Mr. Dubey said Social Development Report would look into social aspects that affected people’s life and hoped that other States would emulate Telangana and bring out their own SDRs.
The Telangana SDR would provide baseline data for government to bring in interventions, prevent polarisation and discrimination of vulnerable and poor sections. Efforts would be made to develop social development index for different districts in the State, he said.
Mr.B.P.Acharya, Special Chief Secretary, Planning, and Ms. Kalapana Kannabiran spoke.
