Telangana Minister for IT, Industries and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao has said that the youngest State in the country has pioneered umpteen development and welfare programmes to improve the lives of backward sections of the society and change the saying “What Bengal does today, India does tomorrow to what Telangana does today, India does tomorrow”.
He explained that initiatives such as Rythu Bandhu, Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya and Palle/Pattana Prakruti Vanalu were the best examples of Telangana’s path-breaking steps being emulated by the Centre by launching schemes such as PM-Kisan, Jal Jeevan Mission/Har Ghar Jal, Amrut Sarovar and Nagar Van, respectively. Several other States too had launched schemes on the lines of ones introduced by Telangana.
Speaking at the birth anniversary celebrations of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar by the Industries and Commercial department wherein awards to best Dalit and tribal entrepreneurs were given under T-PRIDE (Telangana State Programme for Rapid Incubation of Dalit Entrepreneurs) here on Thursday, he said only those who dare to dream would make it big in any field and it was applicable to Dalit and tribal entrepreneurs too and suggested them to shed self-doubt (doubts on self) first.
He stated that Haritha Haram and Dalit Bandhu programmes too were innovative as Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had dared to initiate action against Sarpanches and Panchayat Secretaries in case the survival rate of plantation programme was less than 85% while taking up 240 crore saplings’ plantation. “Whether one accepts or not, the fact is that paddy production has gone up from 64 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 to 2.58 crore tonnes in 2021-22 and it’s a major achievement,” he noted.
Similarly, Dalit Bandhu has many success stories with group activities such as setting up rice millers, fuel stations, purchasing ‘palle velugu’ buses and hiring them to TSRTC, dairy farms, farm machinery and others. He stated that failures were bound to be there in life but one has to learn from them. “KCR has lost his first election to Assembly with 750 votes in 1983 but he did not look back since then,” Mr. Rama Rao said.
Making a passing reference, Mr. Rama Rao said he had received information during the event that the Centre had decided to temporarily put on hold its plans to privatise the Vizag Steel Plant by inviting bids for funding working capital and raw material supply. He attributed the Centre’s decision to KCR’s move to send a Singareni Collieries (SCCL) team to Visakhapatnam to study the possibility of bidding for funding working capital or coal supply as part of the policy against privatisation of public sector undertakings.
