The State government has taken up yet another massive programme for improving different State-run schools with an outlay of ₹ 7,289 crore.
Christened ‘Mana Ooru – Mana Badi/Mana Basti -Mana Badi’, the scheme involves development of infrastructure as per the requirements of the modern era in schools. The scheme follows the commencement of measures to introduce English medium in all government schools across the State.
Finance Minister T. Harish Rao, who tabled the annual financial statement for 2022-23 in the Assembly on Monday, said the government was committed to linking the classrooms with the wider world and was hence, investing in digital education. The first phase of the programme involved grounding of works in 9,123 schools, those with higher enrolment in particular, with an outlay of ₹ 3,497 crore.
Mandal would be taken as unit for the scheme and the “Government is not going to discriminate based on whether an Assembly seat is held by the ruling party of by the opposition party.” “This programme will be taken up in all mandals of the State,” he averred. The Minister also announced setting up of the first women’s university in the State and said an outlay of ₹ 100 crore was proposed for the next fiscal.
Another ₹ 100 crore had also been earmarked for upgradation of the forest college at Mulugu into a forest university. Outlining the “stellar growth” achieved by the State since its formation, Mr. Harish Rao said the State’s GSDP had risen to ₹ 11.54 lakh crore at the end of the current fiscal starting from ₹ 4.5 lakh crore at the time of its formation.
The State’s GSDP growth had been consistently higher that the national GDP growth since 2015-16 and the gap was widening. There was a negative growth at the national level as well as in several States due to COVID-19 pandemic last fiscal, but Telangana registered a positive growth rate of 2.2 per cent during the period.
The State continued to maintain higher growth rate in the GSDP in 2021-22 too at 11.2 per cent at constant prices as against national GDP growth of 8.9 per cent. The GSDP growth at current prices was estimated at 19.1 per cent as compared with the GDP growth of 19.4 per cent. The State’s contribution to the country’s GDP improved from 4.06 per cent in 2014-15 to 4.97 per cent in 2021-22. “Telangana is the only State whose contribution in the national economy has grown by almost 1 per cent,” he said.
The State had done well in per capita income, a broad measure of economic development and average living standards. The per capita income of the State stood at ₹ 2,78,833, which is 1.86 times higher than the national average of ₹ 1,49,848.
Elaborating on the comprehensive development of rural areas through Palle Pragati, the Minister said the government had allocated ₹ 3,330 crore for the scheme in the next fiscal while the allocation for development of urban areas through Pattana Pragati was ₹ 1,394 crore. He however expressed concern that the COVID-19 pandemic had hit employment opportunities across the country and said it was imperative for the Centre to provide new employment opportunities.
“There has been a reduction in allocation for MGNREGA by ₹ 25,000 crore which will have adverse impact on the provision of rural employment,” he lamented.
