Lost Opportunities Due To Agitations In A P Since Congress’ alliance with TRS on the commitment to form a seperate Telangana state, there was no effort made to develop another city in the Andhra or Rayalaseema region to act as a counter-weight for Hyderabad, argues the writer Before being put to death, the final words of Sydney Carton in the Charles Dickens novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’- set in London and Paris, start with “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy”. If our politicians in Andhra Pradesh came even close to emulating the thoughts echoed by Carton, a solution to the issue of Hyderabad in the simmering Telangana agitation would have been found a long time ago. Hyderabad as an economic powerhouse is a very recent phenomenon in the 420 year history of the city as a whole. While the city has been a cultural melting pot for long, it was earlier perceived to be laidback with its people appreciating only the finer aspects of life such as cuisine and literary arts. Hyderabad did not have the financial muscle when compared to other metropolitan cities in India and began to really flourish only in the mid-1990s under progressive governments in the Centre and the State. From then onwards, Hyderabad grew with investments made by large corporates and multi-nationals in multi-disciplinary fields such as Electronics and Information Technology, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, etc. As successive state governments began to promote the city more aggressively, Hyderabad emerged as a favoured destination for the middle class professionals from all over India. Government Research Centres and specialized high-technology research that existed earlier began to flourish when India’s talent pool warmed up to Hyderabad and treated the city as a favoured destination to live in. As early as 2004, the Congress Party under the leadership of Dr. Y.S. Raja sekhara Reddy had committed to the formation of a separate Telangana when it entered into an electoral alliance with the Telengana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Since then, there was no effort made to develop another city in the Andhra or Rayalaseema region to act as a counter-weight for Hyderabad. This lack of vision and foresight cost the state of Andhra Pradesh dearly when investor confidence in Hyderabad plummeted once the agitation for a separate Telangana broke-out. Ideally, with the December 09th,2009 announcement of the Home Minister of that time, P. Chidambaram, to form a separate state of Telangana, confidence should have been restored. However his subsequent back-tracking, a lack of political will within the Congress Party and rank, opportunism resulted in close to four years of chaos and uncertainty. During this time the Government did no due-diligence around planning for the future. The Sri krishna Committee report which was tabled was put on the back-burner as political expediency and intrigue became the order of the day. Finally, when the Congress party made a decision on 30th July 2013 precious time was lost in planning for infrastructure and other requirements that would have been pre-requisites for a new state. If the political class was guilty of indecision on separating Andhra Pradesh then the shame of misleading the people of the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, on the issue of Hyderabad, for pure personal gains can be looked upon as a heinous crime. For the first time in the history of independent India we have an instance of a region refusing to capitalise on the opportunity to create a state of its own. No attempt has been made by the leaders of the region to latch on to the ensuing opportunities and fresh investments the creation of a new state would entail. Rather than expend its energies on negotiating an honourable settlement and capitalise on the goodwill generated across the country with such a decision, the leaders of the Seemandhra region seem to be engaging in a dangerous zero-sum game. As if acting in spite like a child not getting its favourite toy the political class of Seemandhra seem to be obsessed with Hyderabad rather than look for ways to create a similar economic powerhouse out of Vijayawada and/or some other region with similar potential. The leaders would be better served highlighting the vision for the people of Seemandhra on how the mineral resources of the Rayalaseema region and the natural resources of the Andhra region along with its maritime coast line can make it a positive contributor to India’s growth. Hyderabad will always be accessible to everybody in India including the people of Seemandhra, inspite of the partisan scare-mongering employed by certain elements of the political class engaging in petty vote-bank politics. The fundamental rights enshrined in our constitution and Hyderabad’s 420 year old history is a living testimonial to this fact. It is high time the political class focus on moving forward to herald a glorious era for the region. Writer is chairman, Malaxmi Group and former president of CII AP chapter -Y.HARISH CHANDRA PRASAD
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 09:25:41 +0000
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