Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is to demand a special category status and other sops for his new state on par with the promised incentives for Andhra Pradesh.
KCR is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other union ministers on Saturday, 7 May. He will put forth the new state's requisitions before the Centre. KCR is to leave for Delhi on Friday for the first time as the Telangana CM and will return to Hyderabad on Sunday night.
During his meeting with Modi, KCR will raise various issues including the controversial Polavaram dam project.
The Chief Minister might seek the Union government's support for development of various sectors, including several irrigational dams in pending, power projects, tourism projects and other key infrastructure projects in the state.
KCR has a busy schedule on Saturday. He would pay a courtesy call to President Pranab Mukherjee. Meetings with central Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu are also on KCR's business agenda on Saturday.
The new Telangana CM will invite Modi to the official State Formation Celebration, which will be scheduled later this month.
Telangana is deserved for the special category status since nine out of its 10 districts are figured in the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) programme of the Union government, according to TRS Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha, B Vinod Kumar. The nine backward districts in Telangana, which come under the BRGF scheme are: Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, Warangal, Khammam, Nizamabad, Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Medak.
Whereas in 13-district Andhra Pradesh, there are only four such backward districts - Anantapur, Chittoor and Kadapa (in Rayalaseema region) and Vijayanagaram (in coastal Andhra region), according to Vinod.
Under the BRGF programme, the Centre provide funds to redress regional imbalances in the country. In the identified districts, BRGF helps to supplement the development schemes.
KCR is eager to get special category status for Telangana, on par with AP, because the neighbouring state has already been promised special incentives by the Centre during the division of united AP. Moreover, the AP Chief Minister-designate Chandrababu Naidu is on a mission to develop his state into another Singapore by wooing industrialists.
So KCR seems to be worried that industrialists in Telangana will be wooed away to AP by Naidu with his offer of incentives. Hence, KCR wants special category status for Telangana on par with AP to retain industrialists and businessmen.
Leaders like Vinod hopes that whatever incentives AP gets from the Centre, would be provided to Telangana as well. The Centre is likely to provide incentives to AP, with regard to income tax, service tax and central excise duty.
