Centre should incentivise performing states, says KTR

Hyderabad, March 7 (IANS) Telangana Industries and Information Technology Minister K. T. Rama on Tuesday alleged that the Centre is penalising the state by not supporting its growth.

Demanding that the Centre back performing states by offering them incentives, he said political affiliations should not define if a state will be supported or not.

In his address at the annual CII event on 'Beyond India@75 - Accelerating Telangana Growth Momentum - Resilience through Competitiveness, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability', he said: "Unless we empower states, incentivise performing states and encourage non-performing states, we will be doing a great disservice to the ambition that we have set for ourselves."

He said while India was a democratic country, not all states are treated equally. He also observed that each state is diverse and that diversity should be respected. "Who are we to tell people what to eat, what to wear and what to speak," he said.

KTR, as the minister is popularly known, said the Hyderabad PharmaCity, which will be the largest pharma manufacturing cluster in the world, did not receive any support from the Centre.

He said the state was also denied a bulk drugs manufacturing cluster, other manufacturing clusters, industrial corridors and others.

Even though a special incentive was promised in the AP Reorganisation Act, nothing has been given to both the Telugu States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, he said.

KTR said that while initiatives like 'Make in India' are good, they have not progressed much beyond slogans. The Centre should empower performing states and incentivise such states, he reiterated.

Many still feel that importing from China works out cheaper rather than making locally despite the import costs, distance and other factors, he said, adding: "We need to ask ourselves why making in China is cheaper, ask about our duty structures, about availability of raw material, about the road blocks we put for our entrepreneurs to compete with the rest of the world."

The minister said that India would have achieved the targeted $5 trillion economy by 2022 if all Indian states grew at the same pace as Telangana.

He said Telangana has set an ambitious target of taking the lifesciences sector value to about $250 billion, more than tripling from the current $80 billion, by 2030.

He pointed out that the in 2020 the value of lifesciences sector was $50 billion and the state had set the target of doubling it by 2030 but as the value increased by $30 billion in two-and-half years, they were confident of reaching the $100 billion target by 2025.

KTR said that Hyderabad now makes 35 per cent (about nine billion doses) of all vaccines made globally. This number will increase to 50 billion (14 billion doses) by the end of next year.

Telangana also has 214 USFDA approved manufacturing facilities, the highest in the world, he said, adding that Telangana is expanding the Genome Valley and Medical Devices Park. The PharmaCity has potential to create employment opportunities for five lakh people.